







Class 1? Z. ^ 

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Copyright N° Q- Sck, 


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Jane In The Orient 





Jane In The Orient 


By 

LOIS HAWKS SWINEHART 

W 

Southern Presbyterian Mission , 
Kwangju , Korea 


With Introduction by 
EGBERT W. SMITH , D.D. 

Executive Secretary of Foreign Missions 
Presbyterian Church in the U. S. 




NewYork Chicago 

Fleming H. Rev ell Company 

London and Edinburgh 






Copyright, 1924, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


5 < 

' 5 £ 




* 

j* * 

**• 

JUN -6 1324 

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


Vi 


i 






To 

L. S. B. 
and 

M. L,. S. 











y 















4 
































Introduction 


T HE author of this little story of love and 
missions has been for thirteen years an 
efficient member of the Korean Mission of 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States, her 
husband being Mission Secretary and Treasurer. 
From her own experience and observation have 
come these charming pictures of Japanese and 
Korean life, needs, customs, scenery, strung like 
pearls on the thread of a narrative which happily 
blends humour, romance, and information down 
to the good old happy-ever-after ending. But 
surely that is not the end of Jane. Unless we have 
wholly misinterpreted the character of that capri¬ 
cious, fascinating, and irrepressible young woman, 
she will be heard from again. We trust so. 

Egbert W. Smith. 

Nashville, Tenn. 


[ 7 ] 



PART I 


JANE S LETTERS 



I 

JANE’S LETTERS 


Yokohama , Japan, August, 19 —. 

Mother Mine: 

Yes, Yokohama it really is. We arrived yester¬ 
day. If ever again I make a voyage with Miriam 
and Dan and their adorable jumping jacks, I shall 
crate those children up, before they are put on the 
boat. You see, by nailing each child separately in 
a Houdini proof, hardwood crate, they could be 
handled by the deck boys quite easily, and oh, £hink 
how much it would add to the pleasure of the pas¬ 
sengers, and to the safety of the children! Then, 
too, I’m sure I would be more popular when it 
became known that I am their maiden aunt upon 
their mother’s side! 

Miriam spent the most of her time reading about 
“The Would-Be-Goods” to the children, and I 
tried for one day to keep them from running into 
the legs of seasick passengers and suffering of¬ 
ficers, and then gave it up. 

Dr. McCloud helped me smuggle my kittens 
aboard at Vancouver. The Chinese “ boy ” put 
them down in the hold, and tied them to the 
emergency steering wheel. I did so hope that the 

[in 


JANE IN THE ORIENT 


steward wouldn’t find them—but worse luck, the 
day before we reached port, one of the kittens 
proved a Judas and hanged himself. The “ boy ” 
told the steward, and the steward told the mate, and 
the mate told the purser; and I was summoned 
before that mighty officer. As I stood before his 
door, I felt, suddenly, terribly lonely and far from 
home. How I did wish that Dave Dodson, who 
gave me those cats, could have been with me then. 
I looked up, and Dr. McCloud stood there smiling 
down at me. 

“ What are you going to tell him about those 
kittens ? ” he inquired. “ I’m making up something 
now,” I said, “ but I’m scared to death. You see, 
that purser has double-lens glasses, and he looks for 
all the world as though he had four eyes.” 

The doctor laughed until the door rattled, and 
then opened it for me; and I am sure he stood 
guard every moment I was in the room. It was 
such a nice little “ pally ” thing to do. 

The purser glared at me through those bulging 
lenses. 

“ I understand you have some cats aboard this 
ship,” he exploded. 

“A few,” I admitted, and smiled straight up 
at him. 

“ How many? ” he demanded in a tone that he 
might have used had we been aground. 

[ 12 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


“ Well, I don’t like to tell you, but—but—there 
aren’t as many as there were.” 

It was an awful minute, but I was still hopeful. 

“ Don’t you know, young woman, that it is quite 
against the rules to bring live stock aboard this 
ship, without a permit ? ” 

“ But, you see,” I argued with desperation, 
“ they couldn’t get to Korea any other way, could 
they? And they are such dears.” 

“ How do you expect to get them through quar¬ 
antine at Yokohama?” 

“ Oh,” I gasped, “ is that all? If I can put this 
over with you and the steamship company, Japanese 
quarantine officers ought to be easy.” He contin¬ 
ued to glare, but it looked to me as though there 
was a smile lurking in each of his four eyes. 

It took a firm hand and a determined will to 
thrust those two kittens into my suitcase at the last 
moment, and to hold the quarantine officer with a 
steady stare while I bowed myself out of his pres¬ 
ence. At the hotel they know cats for what they 
are, and when I explained that my kittens were 
American kittens, they were given the best the 
place afforded. 

At the dock we were greeted by the smiles and 
bad teeth of the pleasant, little ’rickshaw profiteers. 
Their uniforms of bed ticking are shockingly snug 
in unbecoming places, but as an embarrassment to 

[ 13 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


the newly-arrived American, the coolie, with bal¬ 
anced burden swung from his shoulder, and trot¬ 
ting along in next to nude nonchalance, has it all 
over him. 

The moment Anne stepped into a ’rickshaw she 
looked an appropriate bit of the landscape, and 
when she raised a parasol I wanted to hug her— 
Anne, though a missionary, is very pretty. Oh, 
mother mine, how I laughed when I saw the husky 
full-blooded, registered American man, Dr. Mc¬ 
Cloud, in one of those little two-wheeled cabs. He 
looked for all the world like a Hagenback elephant 
in a perambulator. 

The County Clarion editor asked me to write an 
article on the Shantung Peninsula from this side. 
Please tell him I can never do it now. Peninsulas 
possess no interest for me. They are almost en¬ 
tirely surrounded by water, I learn! 

Oh, mother, this is fairyland! The streets, my 
dear, are pageants, opening out into the most won¬ 
derful vistas of quaint, tiled roofs, and old, gray 
1 walls and banners of red and green and blue. Fans 
and sashes flaunt their brilliance down every by¬ 
way. Tow carts drawn by oxen, loaded always 
with straw-covered things, Oriental, labelled with 
queer hieroglyphics, take the middle of the road, 
and refuse to turn out for the big, honking auto¬ 
mobiles that push impertinently into this age-old 

[ 14 ], 




JANE’S LETTERS 


background. The native stores are tiny booths 
with wares displayed in a distracting scheme of 
colour and form. In the rear of every shop is a 
charming view of the domestic arrangements of 
that particular shopkeeper—a pageant, planned, I’m 
sure, to take one’s mind off the pressing problem of 
the high cost of the wares displayed. 

Hotly you approach one of these suave little 
merchants, and bumingly inquire the price of his 
silks. As he names a politely extortionate figure, 
your primitive impulse to throttle him is tempered 
instantly by a glance at the doll-house behind the 
creature, where his children, in crimson and green 
and yellow sashes, are laughing in happy abandon, 
and splashing colour over a picture that makes you 
scream with delight. Every bloody instinct is al¬ 
layed. You pay his price, and thank him for his 
trouble. 

I’m so thrilled with this glimpse of the Orient 
that I’m ready, right now, to “ Hippety-Hop to the 
Barber shop” to have my hair plastered and 
smoothed and oiled in woven-hair-sofa-cushion 
effects, just like the Japanese girls. I want to 
wear a dove blue kimono with a scarlet lining, and 
hobble along in stumpy, little steps upon wooden 
sandals. 

Dr. McCloud is immensely amused at my 
speeches. I told him today that I’d like to be a 

[ 15 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


burglar, so that I could run down Japanese alley- 
ways all I wanted to. Mother, dear, are you sure 
that among our ancestors not far back there was 
not a pickpocket? I’m having such leanings 
that way. 

When I come back to America, Dave Dodson 
and I are going in for municipal improvement, and 
when he is elected Mayor we’ll make garden spots 
of our alleyways too. We could train ampelopsis 
over our ugly, brick store-buildings, remove trash 
cans, boxes, and crates, introduce flights of gray, 
stone steps (they would be old some day), cover 
these with moss, set out shrubs in tubs, and en¬ 
courage the tenants of upper stories to plant win¬ 
dow boxes of nasturtiums and hang out bird cages. 
Wouldn’t this, I ask you, make Uncle Jim crinkle 
his eyes? 

Your daughter, 

Jane. 

Yokohama, Japan, August , ip —. 

Only Mother: 

This noon, at luncheon, we were exchanging 
stories of the sights of Yokohama. Dan declared 
that he saw one sign that read, “ Boots Shoes and 
Appendixes for Sale Here.” 

That s easy, said the doctor, “ I get the con¬ 
nection. Cost of production is about the same, and 

[ 16 ] 




JANE'S LETTERS 


in the Orient nothing is wasted. That thrifty 
merchant is willing to sell his appendix to pay his 
doctor’s bill. But, listen to this: I found an hon¬ 
est confession pasted up in the window of a trans¬ 
fer company that hung damp, cold beads upon my 
brow. ‘ We will send your baggage in every 
direction.’ I had just checked twenty-seven bags, 
trunks and suit cases, and Great Scott’s Emulsion! 
I bet they do it, too.” 

We are to stay here until tomorrow afternoon. 
I am delighted over the delay, but Miriam, Dan, 
and Dr. McCloud are obsessed with the one idea of 
getting back to Korea, and their work. They do 
not talk a lot about it, but I know that with every 
one of these furloughed missionaries, and with 
Anne, too, sightseeing is a decided bore. An un¬ 
canny something is calling, calling them, and with 
every nerve taut they are making a response- 
spontaneous, instant. A spirit dominates them that 
angers and makes me afraid. 

Shimonoseki , Japan, August, ip —. 

Dearest: 

We left Yokohama Friday afternoon for the trip 
along the coast to Shimonoseki, where we were to 
take the boat crossing the straits to Fusan Korea. 
I wanted to travel this distance in a picturesque 
ox-cart led by a more picturesque jockey—it would 
[17] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


have been so much in keeping with the scenery; 
but when the toy Limited puffed into the station, 
and piped a shrill blast, exactly like the whistle on 
a derrick in America, and when the diminutive 
sleeper rolled along like a parlour ornament, I 
clapped my hands ecstatically, and the ox-cart idea 
went aglimmering. 

“ It’s the Lilliputian Limited, it surely is,” I ex¬ 
claimed. " Why didn’t someone prepare me for 
this ? I shall never ride in anything else. It’s the 
darlingest thing I ever saw.” 

The doctor smiled, all the while measuring that 
sleeper with cold calculating eyes. 

“ It’s all very well for short, newly-arrived en¬ 
thusiasts, who can stretch out in those berths, but 
it’s hard on Gullivers,” he grumbled. The doctor 
has a perfectly good reason for being irritable. It’s 
all the fault of that Yokohama Transfer Com¬ 
pany’s awful warning. Fearing tha| by chance 
they might do as they said, he surrendered our 
baggage checks and now seventeen odd suitcases, 
bags and trunks are here with us every minute of 
the journey. Upon entering this sleeper, we found 
that every inch of the vestibule, and half of the 
space in the aisles were crowded with our posses¬ 
sions, so that we were forced to make our exits 
and our entrances by means of a running jump. 
This exercise has proved so strenuous that as a 
[ 18 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


party we were completely exhausted by nightfall. 
I was too tired even to scream, when we caught 
sight of Fujiyama. 

There was a queer, old gentleman next to us, 
who eyed the dapper little porter dourly, as the 
latter went through his studied drill in making up 
the berths. After a short time he held forth in 
these words: “ That’s no upper berth, I tell you. 
That’s a plate-rail. It isn’t even a shelf; it’s 
nothing more than a moulding. I’ll never risk 
myself up there. It’s me for a second-class car. I 
shall sit up all night with my knees under my chin. 
It’s the way they bury their dead in this land 
anyway.” 

The members of our party who spent the night 
upon the stuffy closet shelves of the imitation 
sleeper with the thermometer at ninety degrees 
Fahr. envied him his bright eyes and clear com¬ 
plexion in the morning. 

Mother, dear, have you ever struggled in a lower 
berth to pull a one-piece dress over your head with 
the shining mahogany overhead reflecting every 
contortion? Of course you remember how cross 
it made you and how you wanted to say things 
back to the spiteful caricature in that dark, red 
panel. Hairpins stabbing straight into your head 
helped the feeling some, too. It’s just that much 
worse in a Japanese imitation sleeper where every- 

[ 19 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


thing is scaled one-third smaller than a regulation 
Pullman. 

The Lilliputian Limited arrived in Osaka, the 
Pittsburgh of Japan, the next morning at seven 
o’clock. The cheerful little building that opened 
upon an expanse of blue sky and green hills and 
tiny, thatched huts, proved to be the Union Sta¬ 
tion. The platform was crowded with men and 
women and children, in extremely tight kimonos, 
all running to .catch trains: and it seemed a pity to 
heat themselves up in this way—the speed limit of 
twenty miles an hour doesn’t warrant it. 

Japanese think differently than we do. They are 
very self-conscious and sensitive, and I know the 
reason why, now. It’s their shoes. The Japanese 
shoe is an unyielding platform of wood, supported 
beneath by two piers. Threaded into this platform 
is a “ V ” shaped thong. This strap holds foot and 
board together, by twining over the great toe— 
separating it from the other toes, and securely 
binding the ball of the foot to the shoe. I can 
remember how dreadfully nervous it always made 
me as a child to get anything between my toes when 
I went barefoot,—and think and pity; these people 
of the Orient have something between their toes all 
the time, and I’m sure this accounts for a lot of 
their queer ways. No wonder they remove their 
shoes when entering their homes. 

[ 20 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


Anne declared the lavatory of the Lilliputian 
Limited entirely too stuffy, and resorted to a long 
row of basins on the platform of the station where 
native men and women and children (who weren’t 
running at the moment to catch trains) were 
socially making their morning toilets. In a few 
minutes she rushed back to our car, choking with 
indignation. After a long time of sympathetic 
questioning she finally admitted that a Japanese 
gentleman of seeming rank and culture had pulled 
off his shirt right before her very eyes. Dan 
heaved a sigh of relief, and hugged himself that it 
was a shirt only. Anne will make a missionary, 
but she is going to have some severe jolts first. 

Never did I expect to discover fairy land. But I 
have. It lies between Kobe and Shimonoseki. 
Hills in flat terraces, that are now emerald-green, 
paddy fields, form the setting for marvelous land¬ 
scapes of ribbon waterfalls, arched bridges, feath¬ 
ery, bamboo groves, and long, twisted vines. The 
houses of the rural Japanese are two-thirds roof,— 
thatched roofs that are artistically trimmed. Many 
times they blossom out thriftily at the ridge pole in 
sprouting barley or grass. I asked Miriam if they 
did not sometimes pasture their cows up there ? 

It was a journey of twelve interminable hours, 
and we had been traveling for three weeks. The 

[ 21 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


thermometer made several futile attempts, but 
never got below ninety-three, and settled finally 
at ninety-five as a mean average. Miriam’s 
children had exhausted all the possibilities of 
the funny, little sleeper as a recreation park, 
and Dan had taken them into the baggage-car 
to feed the kittens. By ten o’clock, hills, and 
flat terraces and emerald-green paddy fields and 
ribbon waterfalls and arched bridges, feathery, 
bamboo groves, and long, twisted vines had 
ceased to charm, and were no better than jungles 
to sweltering travelers. Tempers of varying 
shades of intensity held sway, every one of us 
yielding, and we all went in for dispositions. I 
wanted nut sundae. I wanted an electric fan and 
ice water, and oh! I wanted America and Dave to 
help me forget the miseries of that day. The good 
doctor did his best to keep up the spirits of the 
crowd, but there were so many cinders in my eyes 
and down my neck, and I felt so scratchy all over 
that I gave up trying to be cheerful, and curled up 
in one end of the sleeping-car section, and in spite 
of the charming scenery flying by, cried all the way 
from Myijima. 

Miriam retired behind a big book, and Anne, 
still nervous from the shock of the early morning 
(the affair of the Japanese gentleman and the 
shirt), devoted herself to a copy of the Ladies' 

[ 22 ] 



JANE'S LETTERS 


Home Journal. Things masculine gave her heart 
failure for the moment, she declared. The doctor 
drew a diagram of his new, leper hospital on an old 
envelope. “ Listen,” said Miriam, “ here’s the 
story of a Japanese Romeo and Juliet. Shall I 
read it aloud? ” 

“ Yes, if you care to,” I said feebly, from the 
corner of my handkerchief. 

“Does it describe Romeo’s doublet? If it does, 
I’ll stop my ears with cotton while you read,” said 
Anne, gingerly looking over the top of her 
magazine. 

“Japanese Romeos wore nothing but kimonos 
in those days, and never pulled them over their 
heads in polite society,” comfortably explained 
Miriam. “ Here is the story.” 

“ Thanks, dear,” murmured the appreciative 
Anne, “ the reading has consumed just twenty-five 
minutes.” 

“If that’s all you got out of my story,” said the 
reader, “ the morale of this crowd is certainly low. 
Where’s the doctor ? ” 

“ Sh—sh—” I whispered, looking anxiously in 
Anne’s direction. “ She must not know it, but while 
you were reading he decoyed a chance Japanese 
passenger, who entered the car while Anne’s eyes 
were upon her magazine, into the coach behind.” 

[ 23 .]. 





JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ What didn’t he wear?” she whispered in 
return. 

“ He had reduced himself to B.V.D.’s. Yes, of 
course he wore a hat to prevent sunstroke in 
this car.” 

When Dan returned with the children, he 
brought with him five bendoes (please note how I 
flavour my epistles with the native speech), or 
Japanese lunches. They were little wooden boxes, 
cleverly made of pine veneer, filled with well-boiled 
rice, cold, sliced turnips, salsify and something 
with a parsnippy taste, and a queer kind of fish cut 
up raw. A tiny spray of cool, green pine decorated 
each box. The whole was tied up in delicate paper 
with two tiny, chopsticks thrust under the string. 

“ There’s no such train service as this in 
America,” said the doctor. “ I’m going to intro¬ 
duce it when I go home on my next furlough.” 

“ Do try these pickled beans,” said Miriam. 
They’re delicious.” 

“ Oh do sample this preserved water-lily root, 
and these pickled turnips,” warmed up Anne. 

“ And this cut-omelet effect is as dainty as—but 
—oh—oh—” Her eyes were bulging, and it took 
some time to bring her back to normal. 

She caught her breath. “Don’t worry about 
me, I’m out of danger now,” she choked. “ It’s 
flavoured with seaweed and green pepper! ” 

1241 




JANE'S LETTERS 


“What are you eating, McCloud?” inquired 
Dan of the Doctor when nothing had happened for 
several minutes. “Me?” he inquired pleasantly. 
“ Oh, I’m just gnawing on some old root! ” 

After we had sampled each of the queer-looking 
articles in the bendaes, we looked each other 
squarely in the face. Silently we collected those 
attractive boxes, and solemnly we pitched them out 
of the window. Let him who will, eat Japanese 
food. A people that eats seaweed salad, preserved 
beans and raw fish must have national peculiarities 
in other ways. Food like that is bound to crop out 
in one way or another. 

This evening five weary travelers, to say 
nothing of the children and the kittens and the 
baggage, mingled with the throng that swarmed 
through the gates of the Shimonoseki railway 
station, and were personally conducted to the 
semi-modern hotel. Here we are to stay until 
the sailing of the boat that takes us across the 
straits to Korea. We are tired tonight, and a£ 
there are but two baths in this hotel we shall have 
to stand in queue. 

More anon, dearest. 

Jane. 

P. S. The Japanese hotel clerk made this entry 
upon our bill—“ Two cat meals, forty sen.” 
Wretch! 


[ 25 ] 



JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Pusan , Korea , August, jp—. 

Mother Mine: 

The air in the cabins of the Koma Mam last 
night was stifling and no one slept. As the night 
grew intolerable, I escaped from my stateroom 
and stole up the stairs to the deck, where I 
almost fell over two Japanese men stretched upon 
the calked planks. At the prow of the ship the 
second class passengers, deserting their bunks, had 
gathered upon the deck and were socially chat¬ 
ting the night away. The sea was a misty ex¬ 
panse of molten glass, folded back in ridges of 
fire where the ship ploughed the fields of phos¬ 
phorus. I heard a step behind me and Dr. 
McCloud was at my side. For a long time we 
stood at the rail and felt the breath-warm air in 
our faces. The sun came up behind the vapoury 
mists of a shadowy island, and one of the Jap¬ 
anese men at my feet arose, turned his face to 
the east, and clapped his hands to attract the atten¬ 
tion of some spirit of the air. He rubbed his 
hands together and repeated orisons in a sing-song 
rhythm. 

“ Touching little ceremony/” I said, turning to 
the doctor, “and it fits into the hour and the 
scenery, too. And you missionaries would destroy 
a faith like that ? ” 

“ I was waiting for that remark, Miss Jane. It 

[ 26 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


is the usual one, but I hoped that you would not 
make it.” 

My face flushed, and I hated the man. I bit my 
lip, but—(put one down to my credit, mother) 
controlled my voice. 

“ I do not see for my part what warrant you 
missionaries have for coming to this country with 
a new religion,” I replied. “ These people are 
happy with what they have. I think you are in¬ 
truders. You ought to let them alone.” 

The doctor paused a moment. His pauses are so 
exasperating, and make me wild. 

“ Are the silk merchants, and the ivory and tea, 
and rug, and brass, and bead merchants letting 
them alone ? Are they intruders ? ” 

“ That’s different,” I snapped. “ Those mer¬ 
chants are supplying Americans with what makes 
for the happiness of Americans.” 

“ And we missionaries are giving to the Oriental 
the only thing that makes for his real happiness. 
Do not deceive yourself, Miss Jane. People who 
know nothing about Jesus Christ and His love are 
not happy; many of them are content and stoical, 
and light-hearted, but they are not happy. They 
know nothing of the peace that passeth all under¬ 
standing. They know nothing of the joy that 
comes from a knowledge of sins forgiven. Can 
you understand that ? ” 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ I cannot, and I do not want to understand it. 
I loathe church machinery, and missionary societies 
and Bible classes in particular.” 

He was talking now in a low, clear voice. 

“ Once I did, too,” he went on, “ until Jesus 
Christ put two strong hands upon my shoulders, 
and turned me about to face the narrow, straight 
way. Things and men distasteful to me once, I 
love now, because my Master loves them.” 

I moved away from him, and stood at the 
prow. The gold and crimson and violet of the 
dawn were suffused by the rising mists from the 
turquoise sea, and above the dark mass of the 
island a fringe of low pines and shrubs were 
etched in delicate silhouette. The witchery of the 
scene and the hour stole through my senses lik® 
ether. Anger was gone, only a stinging sense of 
my own rudeness brought the tears to my eyes, 
but I was determined that the doctor should not 
see my emotion. 

He was at my side again. I put my hand to my 
throat to steady my voice. 

“ Dr. McCloud,” I said, “ why are you a 
missionary ? ” 

“ I am under orders,” he answered. “ My Com¬ 
mander sent me to tell of the life and sacrifice of 
Jesus Christ to men who have never heard the 
story. It was mighty hard in America to find men 

[ 28 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


who had the leisure to talk about the things of the 
kingdom.” 

“ You are talking just like a common missionary 
zealot,” I flashed back. “ I thought you were a 
doctor, and had charge of a leper asylum.” 

“ I am a physician, and leper work is my side 
line,” was his steady reply. “ But my warrant for 
thrusting myself into the life of this Oriental 
people lies higher than that. There is but one faith 
in all the universe that has been revealed by God to 
man, and I am a messenger of that faith to these 
people. I have come to talk about God, man to 
man.” 

“ You mean personal work? I hate the word.” 

“ Miss Jane, I know you are frankly touched by 
the claims of Jesus Christ, and some day you are 
going to yield to the power of the Spirit, and the 
urge of seeking souls will be upon you too.” 

“ That sounds almost like a curse, and I feel like 
crossing myself. I left America to escape just such 
things.” 

Dr. McCloud looked sad and hurt, and Mother, 
I was truly sorry for this outburst, but something 
inside urges me on to these raspy answers. 

The strait’s steamer swung gracefully about, and 
was warped slowly up to the dock as we neared 
Fusan. We were in Korea. 

[ 29 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


There was a stir of excitement among the 
missionaries, as the brown thatches of the low, 
Korean huts, with their trailing decorations of 
gourd vines and bright patches of red peppers 
came in sight. Dan and Miriam, the doctor and 
Anne stood at the rail, and in their eyes was a 
flash of exaltation, of jubilation that I had never 
seen before, not even in the eyes of soldiers em¬ 
barking for France. 

A sickening sense of isolation and loneliness 
possessed me, and I walked away to hide the tears 
that filled my eyes. Why should the sight of a 
group of low, brown, thatched huts, queer men and 
women in white clothes, and children in tulip col¬ 
ours, coming and going among those little houses 
move people, born in America, like that? Why 
should Miriam, my own darling sister, have 
stamped upon her lovely profile the look that draws 
angels down, when her eyes rested upon those 
sordid huts? Why are men like Dan and Dr. 
McCloud content to be buried alive in this alien 
land? I went below to find the kittens, and to get 
away from these saints. They made me ill. 

Later, Dr. McCloud searching for the twenty- 
seventh piece of baggage almost stumbled over me 
in the hold. 

“ You—you, Miss Jane, are you here? ” he said 
sharply. “ It’s insufferably hot in this place. Go 

[ 30 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


up at once to the air. These kittens are my 
charge.” 

His voice had a peculiar ring, deep and tender, 
that thrilled and fascinated but made me angry. 

“ I came down here to escape the sight of you 
pilgrims of the night gazing upon the celestial 
heights,” I retorted. “ You were just about to 
burst out with * Look ye saints, the sight is 
glorious! ’ ” 

“ We are some enthusiasts, but I didn’t know we 
had gone to the limit of driving people into the hold 
of the ship,” the doctor answered. . “ Let me help 
you up those stairs, you are sure to stumble.” His 
hand was on my arm, but I sprang up ahead of him. 

“ I cannot understand you missionaries,” I said 
petulantly. “ This is a foreign country and yet 
you, and Dan, and Miriam, and Anne, look as 
though you had forgotten America, and counted 
the life you were born to nothing but dross. It 
isn’t patriotic, it isn’t natural, and I swear here I’ll 
never be a missionary.” 

“ No, you never will be,” he said, as we regained 
the deck, “ until God Almighty reveals the glories 
of this work to you. Miss Jane, missionaries are 
called, not persuaded into this work, and they are 
the happiest people in the world because they are 
absolutely in tune with the Infinite.” 

Mother, he actually believes this. His brown 

[ 31 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


eyes shone like deep pools in a wood, and I’m des¬ 
perately afraid I am going to admire him. I wish 
Dave were here. 

After reaching the wharf, the cats were my first 
concern, and when they were located in the shade 
of a freight shed, we started in a body for the 
customs office. The seance with the officials was 
soon on. Trunk after trunk was unpacked and 
painstakingly examined by the officials who enjoyed 
immensely this little glimpse into our intimate pos¬ 
sessions. Anne writhed as the key was turned in 
her trunk. “ Oh, why must my personal belong¬ 
ings be turned up to the vulgar gaze in this man¬ 
ner?” she moaned. “This is anguish.” Dr. 
McCloud was wild. “ See here,” he said in their 
language to the officials, “ you examine my trunks 
first, and if you don’t find any cigarettes or 
whiskey or bombs or things like that, just call this 
search off, will you ? ” 

The Orientals only smiled and continued to turn 
over the tissue paper lingerie and blue bows. Dr. 
McCloud had been in training in an officers’ camp 
while on furlough, and he now stalked up and 
down with a furious military air. Anne sat down 
to have a little weep, and then sprang up with a 
bright idea. “ Please do not open that portfolio,” 
she pleaded, “ my soldier brother’s picture is in it, 
and he is now in France.” 

[ 32 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


An American soldier in France! The customs 
official dropped all the nainsook filigree, and tore 
open the portfolio with hectic interest. Instantly 
every employee on the place crowded about to 
examine the photograph. Several pictures of an 
officers’ training camp in Virginia also claimed 
their attention. Dan bore down upon the 
crowd, and Dr. McCloud continued to stalk up 
and down. 

McCloud’s brow cleared in a flash as he took in 
the situation. “ Oh, is that what you are after ? ” 
he exclaimed. “ There’s an officer’s complete uni¬ 
form in this little locker here. Shall I open it?” 
Should he! That Oriental mob fell upon him as 
one man. If there was one thing they wanted to 
examine among the foreigners’ possessions it was 
an American soldier’s uniform. The whole affair 
was off in that moment, and Dr. McCloud threw 
open his locker with a swing—at the same time 
shutting the trunks behind him. 

It took an age to extract every garment, specu¬ 
late upon the cut, material, fit, and probable cost 
and wearing qualities. Many of the garments 
were tried on, and the effect contrasted with that 
gaily ornamented uniform of the Japanese. The 
missionary ground his teeth. “ And they were 
fumigated just before I left America!” he 
groaned. 


[ 33 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Kwangju , Korea , August, ip —. 
Mother, My Own: 

The railways in Korea are just as wide as those 
in the United States, and the train we boarded at 
Fusan ran over a standard gauge track. Travelling 
was more comfortable, but less romantic, than in 
Japan. Upon reaching Taiden, we learned that we 
should have to spend the night in a Japanese inn, 
and your daughter, wild with excitement, cat-box 
in hand, headed the procession as it wound up that 
Oriental street in search of the hotel. Someone 
had built this hotel of pine, two by fours, plaster, 
paper and straw matting, and the effect was truly 
a doll’s house. The frail stairs creaked under the 
heavy tread of our big American men. At the en¬ 
trance, our shoes were politely but firmly removed 
from our feet by little Japanese servant girls, and 
from that moment we felt conspicuously and 
notably out of place. I cast a side-glance at Dr. 
McCloud, who was trying to keep a pair of 
sloppy, Japanese, bedroom slippers upon his feet. 
They would not stay on, and irresistibly I burst 
into a peal of laughter at his plight. The situ¬ 
ation was delicious. That dignified doctor’s 
courtly manner and freedom of speech broke 
down completely when his shoes were taken from 
him. It’s quite evident that no American man 
pacing a hotel lobby in his socks can ever be quite 

[ 34 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


himself, especially when one of his socks has a 
hole in it. 

He looked at me in abject despair; but I was 
pitiless, for I felt that he was being properly pun¬ 
ished for the unhappiness he had caused me on 
the boat. 

There wasn’t a chair in the place, which was a 
mercy, because sitting upon the floor, with our feet 
hidden, helped our self-respect some. 

For supper we were served sinewy steak, eggs 
scrambled around sea weed, a poor imitation of 
black bread, and delicious tea. This was brought 
to us on tables a foot high, and we could not get 
our feet under them! 

The diminutive serving-maids were so attractive 
in their kimonos and bright obis and with bare 
feet that we did not mind the menu much. 

“ The bath’s the thing in a Japanese inn that 
gives you shell shock,” remarked the doctor, “ do 
you feel like trying it ? ” His look was directed at 
Anne, but I knew he meant me. “ Indeed I do 
not,” said Anne with decision. She will never for¬ 
get the horrors of that shirt episode, I fear. Of 
course I was game, as I go in for local colour every 
time. The bathroom was a small detached cubby¬ 
hole on the ground floor. It was entirely separate 
from the main building, and had been set in this 
place, apparently, to interrupt the public gaze. 

[35 X 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


There was no lock upon the sliding paper door, 
which tended to nervousness, I admit. The bath¬ 
tub was a cement tank, five feet high, with an iron 
floor, heated from below by a charcoal fire. The 
water was about 110 Fahr. Naturally I was 
almost scalded. The only thing that prevented my 
feet from parboiling was a round board that 
floated on top of the tub as I entered it, and that 
went down with me to the bottom where the iron 
floor was heated seven times hotter than any 
furnace. Be it said here that good Americans who 
survive this bath never talk about it. 

That night we slept upon wadded quilts spread 
upon the straw matting covering the floors of the 
inn. Our pillows were round and hard—some¬ 
thing like the hair cloth sofa ends of the furniture 
in our garret. The bed room windows of wooden 
slats—no glass—opened upon the street, and dis¬ 
couraged the entrance of thieves, but nothing else. 
The ubiquitous, little serving-maids fluttered about 
like moths, and we soon found ourselves beneath 
huge green mosquito-nets suspended from the 
ceiling. The partitions between the bedrooms were 
of paper, and I heard Miriam inquire of Dan, 
“What are your sensations, dear, under that 
net ? ” 

“ It’s—it’s like being in an aquarium,” he 
groaned, “and I have a fellow feeling for the 
[36] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


man who said he had about as much privacy as a 
goldfish.’’ 

At daybreak the barefooted maids knelt just 
outside our mosquito nets, and announced in softest 
tones that it was time to rise. We gathered about 
the little tables that morning, still sitting upon the 
floor—a bit weary and altogether travel-worn 
group. 

“ Oh for a chair, just one little footstool, to sit 
upon,” moaned Miriam. “ I’m so tired of sitting 
and lying upon the floor, that I wish someone 
would hang my weary frame on a peg in the wall. 
If my bones could only dangle awhile it would be 
some relief.” 

Anne wanted to sing at morning worship 
" We’re going home, no more to roam,” to help 
the situation, but her suggestion was not popular. 

“ It’s five forty-five,” she remarked a little later, 
as she gracefully consulted her wrist-watch. 

“ It’s not! ” exclaimed the rest of us in a 
chorus, almost jumping at her. “ It’s six-thirty, 
if it’s anything. Our combined timepieces 
say so.” 

“ I don’t mean a. m. in Korea, I mean p. m. in 
North Carolina. I have never changed my watch 
because I wanted to know exactly what the time in 
America is, and how and where to think of the 
dear ones in the old home,” returned Anne. 

[ 37 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


There was a moment’s pause and several gulps, 
then Miriam and I put our heads down and burst 
into sobs. 

“ See here,” said Miriam, brokenly, “ why do 
we give up like this when we are only fifty miles 
from our Korean home? We just must forget 
the things behind, and think only of the joys 
before us.” 

“ It’s nerves,” said the doctor. “ It’s nerves and 
stocking-feet. I’m going to put on shoes and go 
out of this doll’s-house to stand on the street 
corner until train time. I feel I am only half a 
man, sitting on this floor like a tailor.” 

“ I’m with you, Doc,” said Dan, with a groan. 
“ They will have to saw my legs off before I’ll 
ever enter another Japanese inn. I’m paralyzed 
from the waist down now. This is no place for a 
two-legged, white man. Some of their bronze 
Buddhas, over here, have been sitting on their feet 
a thousand years. Cramps! Oh man! I’d rather 
be a statue in a park. It stands upon its legs 
anyway.” 

As a party we made a wild rush for the down 
train when it pulled into the station. I shrieked 
with delight as we plumped down into the springy 
red plush car-seats, and Dan executed a hornpipe 
in the aisle to show off his shoes, he said. The 
children dragged Dr. McCloud forward to the 

[ 38 ] 




JANE'S LETTERS 


baggage car, and he spent the entire time in there 
amusing them and himself, too. 

The sights of Korea are great, and our spirits 
were high. It was fun to watch the natives lie down 
upon the car-seats for a little siesta and put their 
feet out of the window. Anne almost fainted, 
however, when she saw a Japanese gentleman pre¬ 
pare to take off his kimono, to put on his foreign 
clothes right before her. I curled up in a corner 
of the seat, and to keep in mind the adventures of 
the night before wrote this jingle: 

“ In days ago I longed to be 
A clever little Japanee, 

To tint my cheeks a brilliant rouge, 

And run around without my shoes. 

“ I thought how fine to sleep quite late, 

And know my breakfast wouldn’t wait 
Long time I’d lie and take my rest, 

Then tie a string, and I’d be dressed. 

“ An obi too I longed to wear, 

And have a barber comb my hair 
And go all day without a hat, 

And sleep at night upon a mat. 

“ And now when here it’s up to me 
I lack the right an-a-to-me: 

Alas! I know I ne’er can be 
A real successful Japanee.” 

[ 39 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


We were back to normal within a short time. 
As the train pulled into the station at Shoteri (the 
railway stop nearest Kwangju) Miriam danced up 
and down, and Dan and the doctor threw hats into 
the air at the sight of hundreds of white-robed 
Koreans assembled to welcome them back to their 
own home, and their own work in this foreign 
country. As I looked into the friendly, shining, 
black eyes of those Koreans, and was told that 
many of them had walked miles and miles to grasp 
the hands of these missionaries that day, a tiny 
wave of envy swept me, and I wondered how it 
would feel to be loved like that? 

“ There is Sabbath Day’s Mother,” called 
Miriam as she hurried down the platform. Her 
hand was upon the shoulder of a native woman 
whose dark eyes bore traces of suffering, but who 
was so lighted up with joy at the sight of my dar¬ 
ling little sister that it was almost unearthly. Her 
dress was of white linen, spotless and starched 
like paper. The men were dressed in white 
cambric trousers, full and tied at the ankle with 
a jaunty bow-tie. Shirt-jackets tied at the side 
answered for coats, and a long, white linen over¬ 
coat, hung to perfection, added dignity and char¬ 
acter to the wearer. 

Dr. McCloud rushed by me, without once look¬ 
ing to see if I were carrying so much as a handbag, 

[ 40 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


and in a moment his arms were about the shoulders 
of an old man, who lifted a face of wonder, and 
scanned his features with the awed inquiry of a 
child. Tears were raining down the doctor’s 
cheeks as the old man ran long, tapering, sensi¬ 
tive fingers over the outlines of his face. With a 
shout, the Korean threw his arms about the doctor’s 
neck, and we heard this: “ He opened my eyes, and 
I did not know him. My doctor! ” 

Dan, gathering up the suitcases, turned to me and 
said huskily: “ He was McCloud’s last cataract 
case before going home on furlough. The band¬ 
ages were not off when the doctor left.” 

ABOUT THINGS KOREAN 

Kwangju , Korea, Sept., 19 —. 

Dearest Mother: 

This is to be my first letter about things Korean. 
I have told you of the journey, of the homecoming 
of Miriam and Dan, and I think I have described 
all the ordinary and extraordinary missionaries of 
the station—and now for the natives. 

Sister Miriam announced at the breakfast table 
this morning that an old friend of hers, one of 
the wealthy men of the village, had sent word 
that he would be highly honoured if Miriam and 
her foreign friends, just arrived from America, 
would be present that day at the marriage of 

[ 41 ] 



JANE IN THE ORIENT 


his eldest daughter, to a man chosen by a popular 
“ go-between.” 

“ This is a heathen family,” said Miriam, “ and, 
of course, the marriage ceremony will be strictly 
Korean in character, and after the old custom, 
followed through centuries.” 

“ I cannot think of anything I'd rather do than 
go to that wedding,” I exclaimed at once. “ I have 
been perishing to get out among the natives, and 
down into their homes ever since I arrived. Your 
homes and your gardens may look good to you old 
missionaries, but I’ve been raised among modern 
homes and gardens and sanitary conveniences, and 
as I am not a missionary, and as I do not purpose 
to spend the remainder of my natural life in Korea, 
it’s me for the natives, and a peep into their every 
day lives. I hope we’ll see dozens of those adorable 
little girls, with tiny babies upon their backs that 
I have had glimpses of now and then. Anne 
Bartram, send word at once that you cancel your 
engagement to go over to the hospital with Dr. 
McCloud, and we’ll put on our best, and go to this 
heathen wedding.” 

If I have described Anne correctly to you, 
mother, you will know that she rested her 
delicately-rounded chin in her pretty palm, and 
raised an objection. Anne never permits the base 
desire to be popular, to come between herself and 
[42] 




JANE S LETTERS 


a stand for the opposition if she can prevent it. 
There is no compromise with her. Everything is 
a moral issue, that must be met squarely, even if 
she has to upset the plans of everyone else to do it. 
Mother, she’s a perfect Gibraltar of moral strength. 

As you well know, I’m a jellyfish when it comes 
to issues. Anyone can carry me with him for a 
minute, in an impassioned argument if only his 
eloquence appeals to my imagination. I’m up and 
off with him. Not so with Anne,—one slight slip 
in a statement, one luckless flaw in some illusion, 
and the whole thing must pull up with a halt, until 
she can register her objection and set it right. 

When Miriam told us that morning of the invi¬ 
tation to the wedding, Anne looked pleased, but, of 
course, said: “ Do you think we had better go ? 
You know it will be heathen, and perhaps our pres¬ 
ence at such a function, more or less religious in its 
nature, might hurt the cause we represent.” 

“ Oh, Anne,” I answered, “ do not stop to think 
about that. Put on your hat and let’s go. I’m crazy 
to get into it. They say it is a regular ‘ Hey- 
Diddle-Diddle, the Cat-and-the-Fiddle ’ affair.” 

Anne looked at me sweetly and I saw the Gibral¬ 
tar expression begin to take shape in her eyes, when 
Dan came to my aid. 

“ The cause is made of sterner stuff than that. 
Miss Bartram,” he said. “ You will never under- 

[ 43 ] 




i 


JANE IN THE ORIENT 


stand these Koreans until you experience, as far as 
possible, their mode of life, and learn to under¬ 
stand their ways of thinking. We preachers can¬ 
not even understand the native Christians unless 
we know something of their former state of 
bondage. Sometimes, with my congregation, I 
feel like an old hen who has hatched out a brood 
of ducklings, when I look at my Korean church 
members. They take to so many things I never 
dreamed of in my philosophy and catechism. But 
I’m sure of two things at least. One is that they 
are Christians, alive in Jesus Christ, and the other 
is that I’ll never be able to make Scotch Presby¬ 
terians of them.” 

“And you really think it is our duty to go?” 
asked Anne thoughtfully. 

“ I do not know that it is exactly that, but you’ll 
learn a lot about Koreans if you do,” replied Dan. 
“ And I think the smell and taste of their food will 
give the adventure enough of a flavour of duty to 
appease even your particular conscience.” 

Anne’s scruples most easily melt before the opin¬ 
ion of missionaries who have been upon the field as 
long as Dan has, so she gracefully capitulated, and 
told Dr. McCloud she would go over to the hospital 
with him the next day. If I were a trained nurse, 
as Anne is, and expected to make my home in that 
hospital amid all its smells, I’d welcome anything in 

[ 44 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


the way of diversion that could make me forget it 
for a time. But Anne figures differently, and. 
Mother, she’s just pining to begin her administra¬ 
tions in that horrid place. She’s crazy to visit the 
leper hospital too, about a mile from the compound, 
but I’d rather go to a native wedding. 

We helped Miriam dress the children, and then 
put on our own hats. Anne scorns styles and 
modes of the moment, and wears only what she 
considers appropriate and comfortable. But she 
has such a dignified carriage that anything she puts 
on looks the latest. Oh, Mother, some of the mis¬ 
sionaries out here are simply frights, because they 
are wearing the hats they came to the Orient in. A 
hat after last year’s mode, or even the year before, 
isn’t always such a fright, but farther back than 
that they are simply impossible. I settled my own 
well-made travelling hat with the feeling akin to 
piety that always comes to the well dressed, and 
reflected that some day I’d write to the Mission 
Boards and ask them to increase the salaries of 
their missionaries, so that their clothes could be 
given well-deserved furloughs, and not have to be 
worn long after their style has passed, and they 
look like bygone memories. 

The bride’s home was in a distant part of the 
city where foreigners are seldom seen, and as we 
threaded our way down the narrow streets we soon 

[45 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


heard the clatter of little, wooden sandals (for it 
had rained the night before and the streets were 
muddy) as a train of bright-eyed Korean boys and 
girls followed the helter-skelter procession. 

Dogs and babies brought up the rear, and our 
whole curious following increased with each cross¬ 
way. Miriam told me that one thing she missed, 
when in America, was having a crowd always at 
her heels. Imagine! 

Between stone and mud walls we passed in 
Indian file, with our happy following—until we 
were directed to enter a bamboo gate, like hundreds 
of other bamboo gates behind us, and found our¬ 
selves in the outer court of the home of the Korean 
bride. We were quite certain that we had reached 
the right place, for we saw at once that Mother 
Goose Land was displayed in full array before us. 
Under a waving canopy of grass cloth, supported 
by unsteady bamboo poles, was a table surmounted 
by a huge arch of paper flowers of unwarranted 
size and deceptive colouring. A flaunting scarf of 
yellow, green and blue, picturing unusual birds, 
draped the table below, while upon it were set 
forth, in puzzling array, a variety of Korean foods, 
two dishes of cotton seed, and two badly-warped, 
wooden fish with red balls in their mouths. 

“ There’s the bride’s mother,” said Miriam, ad¬ 
vancing to meet the hostess who was coming down 
[ 46 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


toward us, walking over the straw mats spread 
before the table. She was evidently flattered by 
our presence. 

“ But why doesn’t her husband make his appear¬ 
ance, too ? ” I suggested. 

“ The Korean stars would fall if he did,” laughed 
Miriam. “A Korean man would lose face, for¬ 
ever, if he greeted a woman in any way. Only in 
the inmost recesses of the home does he even deign 
to speak to his wife.” 

At one side of the court was a low hut, thatched, 
as most Korean homes are, with rice straw. Be¬ 
fore this sarang or den, a score of Korean gentle¬ 
men in full dress were congregated. In their 
stately costumes of white cambric and silk, down 
to immaculate stockings and white kid sandals, 
they were surely an imposing sight, but strangely 
out of place, I thought, in their setting of thatched 
huts and general squalour. 

As we entered the court we brushed against two 
beggars crouched in pitiful expectancy of scraps 
from the wedding feast. Anne gave one search¬ 
ing look, and glanced at Miriam, who nodded 
a reply. 

“ You needn’t look so mysterious,” I said, “ I 
know, as well as you do, that they are lepers. I’ve 
always wanted to see a leper, and I’m not at all 
afraid of them. Of course, if I were in America 

[ 47 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


I’d go into hysterics with the rest of them at the 
very thought of a leper within a hundred miles. 
But I intend to take the East as it comes. Do look 
up there on that platform porch. Aren’t those the 
darlingest cherubs you ever saw? They look ex¬ 
actly like little Hollanders, green skirts and cerise 
jackets, and stiff, little braids of hair. I declare 
they ought to be painted. They would make fasci¬ 
nating paper dolls.” 

At the entrance we were greeted with true Ori¬ 
ental politeness, and urgently shoved through the 
four-foot high door into the tiny room, to sit upon 
the floor with the other invited guests. 

We left our rubbers outside, which answered 
very well in place of taking off our shoes. Miriam 
was at home among these women at once, for she 
could talk with them. I found I could sit upon 
the floor, with ease, and tuck my feet under my 
dress—you remember I always sat upon the floor 
at home to button my shoes, though Uncle Jim 
said that was the greatest argument against equal 
suffrage. 

It was a new sensation to feel a hand examining 
one’s back comb, or gently stealing along one’s 
shoe buttons in inquisitive search of information 
about the queer foreigner’s dress. Anne sat there 
rigidly, and inwardly (I know it) called this her 
Christian duty, while I sociably assisted our friends 

[ 48 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


where I could by explaining to them the logic of 
our American styles, (in pantomime of course). 

After a polite interval, a tiny table, about a foot 
high, was passed to us through the door. Miriam 
whispered in English, “ Now screw up your cour¬ 
age to the sticking point, for we’ll have to eat some 
of this food offered us.” 

Upon the table were spread all the unmentionable 
horrors that are styled dainty refreshments by the 
Koreans. 

“ It’s really arranged in tempting order, and I’m 
going to try some of these little geometrical cakes,” 
I said. But in a minute I nudged Anne and said, 
“ Don’t touch them, if you value your life; they’re 
made of sawdust and glue. Pass them out to that 
healthy line of waiting babies behind you. What 
do you suppose is in these wooden bowls ? ” 

“ I don’t know, but it looks like furniture pol¬ 
ish,” answered Anne. We both sighed and applied 
ourselves to the contemplation of a dish of dried 
fish, cleverly carved into scrolls and stems and 
curves, much on the order of the Spencerian pen¬ 
manship exercises that were our delight and despair 
in our first High School year long ago. 

By this time our appetites were really sagging, 
and the sight of dried persimmons, clams boiled in 
the shell, and meat carved into unrecognisable 
shapes, very obviously without inspection tags, 

[ 49 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


only served to debilitate them further: so we looked 
pleasant and ate three hard-boiled eggs without 
salt, and felt that our hostess should call it square, 
particularly as Miriam was filling her handbag with 
all kinds and shapes, at the earnest solicitation of 
the women about her, to take something home to 
the “ ruler,” as they designated Dan. 

After the other guests had been served, and the 
diminutive tables had been removed, we were in¬ 
vited into another room to inspect the bride. As 
she sat there like a stone image, her eyes upon the 
floor, I could see that her hair in the curve just 
above the eyebrows had been pulled out, so that the 
forehead extended well up into the hair in two ex¬ 
ceedingly sharp points. This made the outline of 
the hair look exactly like a sharply defined “ W ” 
upside down. A part, as straight as a razor blade-, 
ran from the crown to the point of the “ W,” and 
the whole coiffure had been plentifully anointed 
with castor oil! The straight black locks were 
drawn down so tightly into the knot at the back of 
the head, that I knew it was hard to wink. A queer 
cap of red satin, shaped like a pin-cushion, was 
placed upon her head, apparently upside down. 
Divided skirts of yellow satin, three overskirts of 
variegated colours, and a short jacket of greenish 
yellow silk completed the costume, with the addition 
of a gay robe of chiffon in prismatic colours, which 

[ 50 ] 



JANE'S LETTERS 


was thrown over all the other drygoods. In spite 
of this bunchy and ungainly dress, the little bride 
looked quaintly pretty and wholly Oriental. 

Her bridesmaids were dressed exactly as she was, 
save that each of them had at least half-a-bushel of 
false hair coiled in shiny, black braids on top of 
her head. Into these artificial braids were thrust 
dozens of silver and gold hairpins of all kinds, 
dominated by two enormous ones wrought into the 
form of carnivorous dragons’ heads that seemed, 
from their eminence, to growl defiance at the 
beholder. 

I came upon these bridesmaids suddenly, as I 
entered the room, and I must confess that the sight 
of these towering headgears gave me a start, at 
first. But when I observed that my own cherished 
head covering of straw, plumes, and ribbon fright¬ 
ened these little maidens quite as much as theirs 
did me, I felt a decided bond of sympathy, and at 
once sat down upon the floor with the whole bridal 
party about me. In spite of the barrier of lan¬ 
guage, we were soon upon friendly terms. One of 
the bridesmaids gave me the prettiest of her silver 
pins, and I bestowed upon her my best turquoise 
hat pin. We gave each other a sorority grip, and 
were friends upon the instant. 

“ I hope you are not going to put that pin in your 
hair, Jane,” said Anne. 

.[ 51 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ I surely am,” I said, thrusting it into a back 
coil, “ and it isn’t sterilised, nor carbolised, nor 
sandpapered either. If one is going to bring any 
preconceived notions of germology into the Orient 
with him, he had better stay at home, wrap himself 
in antiseptic cotton and swat flies. Korea is no 
place for him.” 

Anne smiled her peculiar little do-you-think-so 
kind of smile, and Miriam said, “ It is really too 
bad for us to speak English before these people. I 
am sure we are offending them, for no people upon 
the face of the earth are more punctilious about 
forms of etiquette than the Korean.” 

“ I listen while you admonish, my dear sister,^ I 
replied, “ but I cannot talk Korean, and I must 
talk something.” 

“ Hush,” commanded Miriam, “ do you hear that 
long-drawn-out wail in the distance? That’s the 
voice of the friends of the bridegroom, who are 
escorting him hither.” 

“ I have been listening to that unearthly chant,” 
said Anne, “no white man could possibly imi¬ 
tate it.” 

“You are right,” said Miriam. “Dan and I 
have tried again and again to set those notes to 
music upon the piano, but have never succeeded.” 

The bridegroom was ushered by his motley train 
into the yard before the bride’s home, and dis~ 

[ 52 ] 




JANE S LETTERS 


mounted from his pony. A Korean gentleman does 
not sit astride his horse, but high above his head 
upon a padded mattress thrown over a rude saddle. 
The dignified rider sits on top of these bed-clothes 
with his feet drawn under him in true Oriental 
fashion. Naturally in this Humpty-Dumpty posi¬ 
tion he has no control over his horse, but must trust 
entirey to his mapu, who runs at the horse’s head 
with a firm grip upon the bridle, to guide his steed. 
The rider is busy, the most of the journey, wonder¬ 
ing in which direction he’ll fall off, the next time 
the pony gives a start. 

The best man was the bridegroom’s most inti¬ 
mate friend, and he was dressed as a buffoon in a 
long red coat tied at the waist with a rope girdle. 
He looked much like Simple Simon, or the clown 
of a circus, although his face was blackened instead 
of being painted white. Like the American clown, 
his timeworn jests caused shrieks of hysterical 
laughter which served as a vent for the deeper feel¬ 
ings inspired by the marriage solemnities. In sharp 
contrast with the antics of the red man was the 
severe and dignified behaviour of the bridegroom. 

Over the Korean gentleman’s dress of dazzling 
white had been thrown a silk gauze garment, made 
kimono style, of a beautiful blue green colour. A 
belt of agate inscribed with Chinese symbols en¬ 
circled his waist. His long hair was drawn up on 

[ 53 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


top of his head into the characteristic Korean top- 
knot, and over it was placed the wedding hat, 
which is never worn at any other time save by 
officials and scholars. 

“ That hat looks like a fly-trap of wire netting,” 
said Anne, “ but it really isn’t much worse than the 
artificial millinery one often sees upon human heads 
in America.” 

“ I think it is mighty becoming,” I replied, “ and 
he evidently thinks so, too, for he keeps his gravity 
in a remarkable way in the midst of all this won¬ 
derful scenery.” 

Escorted by several of his friends, the bride¬ 
groom was led before a low table, and directed to 
bow three times to the ground. “ I have been 
told,” said Miriam, “ that he is bowing before the 
spirits of his ancestors, supposed to be encased 
within those wooden tablets.” 

“ But I cannot see anything that looks like an¬ 
cestral tablets,” I said. 

“ I confess I have never seen them either,” 
answered Miriam, “but they may be behind that 
small screen.” 

As he arose from his last bow the bridegroom 
was seized, and whirled about to face the arched 
table whereon were placed a jar of cotton seed, two 
tall vases, two half-gourds connected by a string, 
and two wooden fish. As the groom was stationed 
[ 54 ] 




JANE'S LETTERS 


before this table, the red man thrust a live goose 
under his arm. 

“ Mother Goose herself,” I exclaimed delight¬ 
edly, “ it’s all working out so perfectly.” 

Miriam laughed. “ The goose signifies conjugal 
fidelity,” she said, " for it mates but once, and—” 
At this moment the paper-covered door of the 
bride’s room was pushed open and six gaily 
bedizened bridesmaids, in all the glory of fiery-red 
skirts and huge head-dresses clambered down the 
rough stones that answered for steps, and lined up 
on each side of the path between the porch and the 
table. The last bridesmaids conducted the gorgeous 
little bride between them, and led her before the 
table facing her future lord. It was quite necessary 
that they should lead her, for her hands were lifted 
high before her face, and over them were thrown a 
bright scarf of silk that completely veiled her face 
from all beholders. By no chance could she see the 
bridegroom, neither could he catch a glimpse of her 
face—which I thought was rather hard upon both 
of them, for Miriam said they had never been in 
each other’s presence before. Three times he 
bowed to the ground before her, and three times 
she repeated the performance, signifying the great 
“ I do ” of our civilised ceremony. 

“ Such a hodge-podge, isn’t it ? ” I said. 
“ Wouldn’t it make a charming movie comedy? ” 

[ 55 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ Be quiet with your light-headed observations,’' 
Miriam said severely. “ There’s logic and meaning 
somewhere in this spectacle, could one but find it, 
for eight million people are married in the course 
of one generation in this manner. It must be sym¬ 
bolical in some way.” 

“ To me it’s all a ‘ hickory-dickory-dock ’ per¬ 
formance. Come, let us go, or I shall be riding 
broomsticks if this continues much longer,” I 
retorted. 

As we turned to leave, we saw them press the 
gourd of wine to the lips of the bride, who only 
tasted it, and in turn it was passed to the groom, 
who drank but a sip. It was then presented to the 
bridesmaids, who rounded out the ceremony by 
drinking all of it. 

“ It’s all over now,” said Miriam, “ and I know 
you are tired. Shall we hurry home ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Anne, “ it’s all inexpressibly sad to 
me. These people are surely 

* Infants crying in the night, 

Infants crying for the light, 

And with no language but a cry/ 

“ It may be sad to you, but it’s joy to me,” I 
said. “ I feel like ‘ Alice in Wonderland,’ and I 
know I love Korea.” 

Yours from the Other Side, 

Jane. 




JANE’S LETTERS 


Kwangju, Korea , May, 19 —. 

My Mother: 

Eight months in Korea, and I’m having the time 
of my life. Anne is studying the language; I’m 
talking it. Anne sits before an old top-knotted 
teacher, behind a barricade of text-books three feet 
high (I’d make it six if I had to face him), and 
gets each sentence grammatically correct and 
idiomatically wrong. I sit upon the floor at the 
girls’ school and laugh and talk with Ah Soonie 
and Chagime. What they say to me I say back to 
them in the language they use, and in time the 
meaning penetrates. Anne’s teacher finds syno¬ 
nyms for her in the dictionary, and she puts them 
together over a perfectly good English idiom, ex¬ 
actly like cut-out puzzles placed over a correspond¬ 
ing picture beneath, and the result is Korean as she 
is Americanised. But Anne doesn’t care about 
local colour even in language. There’s nothing in 
this heathen land that appeals to her excepting the 
scenery and souls. Koreans as individuals never 
enter her consciousness, but at the mention of 
souls—collectively and especially statistically—she’s 
alive to her finger-ends. Every Korean who comes 
within her mental vision is like an X-ray picture— 
his outer image is but a dim shadow outlining the 
mass of the soul within. Anne doesn’t know one 
native from another—they all look alike to her, 

[ 57 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Mother, dear, your last letter says Uncle Jim 
thinks I must be weary of this life, and wouldn’t 
it be well to think of coming home? Also that 
Dave is always asking when my boat will sail. 
Tell Uncle Jim I’m living in another existence, 
and I’m having new sensations every hour, and 
am ecstatically happy. Besides, please remind 
him that I’m lots less expensive out here than 
in America—that ought to ease his mind some. 
Tell him not to worry, I’m not going to volun¬ 
teer for the mission field as Miriam did. Your 
son-in-law, Dan, will see to that. He considers 
me heterodox and “ not fit for the kingdom.” 
Dan is the defender of the faith in this mission, 
and he’s a perfect Augustine for the catechism 
(it was Augustine, wasn’t it, who thought up 
that catechism?). Dan was almost paralysed the 
other day, when I told him that I thought man’s 
chief end is to glorify God and enjoy himself 
forever! 

As to Dave: Into this new world I have come 
trailing clouds of glory from America, which was 
my home. Certainly in entire forgetfulness I am 
enjoying only the present, which is like another life 
upon another planet. The sensations of this, un¬ 
explored world are so delightful that I haven’t any 
mind to take up a previously abandoned existence. 
Perhaps this new planet belongs to the same solar 

[ 58 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


system as the old, and is swinging around in the 
same orbit, and some day the two may meet, and 
things will fly off into space. But at present I am 
quite insensible to the actions of any other heav¬ 
enly body. Besides, Dr. McCloud plays a much 
better game of tennis than Dave ever did, and he 
rides like a Cossack. 

Since the kittens are settled and acclimated I 
must needs have something to worry about. Well, 
here it is, mother. I have a dependent family now 
to provide for, two boys, and a girl, and their help¬ 
less mother. This is the way it came about. I 
guess you know that a married woman out here is 
known as the mother of her oldest son or daughter. 
You will remember that I told you about “ Sabbath 
Day’s Mother,” who came to meet Miriam at the 
train when we arrived. She named her oldest 
daughter Sabbath Day, and, of course, she is “ Sab¬ 
bath Day’s Mother.” She has been sewing for 
Miriam, and a few days ago came into my room 
with a haggard face, and a long flesh wound across 
her temple. 

“ On-Seekillie (Korean for Sabbath Day), what 
has happened? How were you hurt? Why did 
you come up here in this condition? ” I exclaimed. 
She crouched at the side of the room, and threw 
her arm over her head. 

“ He’s gone Pueen. He won’t come again—it’s 

[ 59 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


all over. Oh, don’t send me home, I can do your 
work. I can do your work.” 

“ Horrible, you will bleed to death with that 
gash in your head. It must be bandaged at once.” 

“ Oh, don’t send me to the hospital,” she 
moaned. “ No one must know. This cloth about 
my head is all right. I want to do my work. It is 
not very deep this time. I buried the big knives. 
Before, the knife was sharp and long, and he cut 
my arm to the bone. I almost died then, for the 
children could not stop the blood. When I was 
lying upon the floor I had a vision of Chrisuto, 
your Chrisuto, you know. He came to me down 
a ray of light. I reached out my arms to Him, but 
He told me to stay with my children. Have you 
ever had a vision, Pueen ? ” 

“ No, why should I? Don’t talk about such 
things now. Tell me how you were hurt, and 
who did it. I am going to bandage your head 
immediately.” 

“ It’s not bleeding much now.” She was groping 
blindly for the sewing basket. 

“ Put down that basket and face me,” I com¬ 
manded. “ I want to know who cut your face so 
cruelly, and if he was taken to the police station? ” 
“Japanese police court! Oh, Pueen, not that, 
not that! He wasn’t sent before the magistrate. I 
couldn’t endure it, it would be too terrible,” and 

[ 60 ] 




JANE S LETTERS 


she burst into a flood of tears. “ He—he is the 
ruler—the high gentleman. He would lose face. 
You will never tell anyone, will you? No man is 
ever called before the magistrate because he beats 
his wife,—that’s custom.” 

I was furious. “ The East is East and the West 
is West, but here is where they meet,” I said to 
myself. “Dan Sanderson shall surely set this 
thing right before night, or I’ll do it myself.” 
With a tremendous lump in my throat I rushed 
into the room where Miriam was bathing the baby, 
and asked where Dan was. 

“He left this morning upon a hard, itinerating 
trip, as you will know, if you stop to think, Jane,” 
she said. 

“ Oh, Miriam, I want his help. The most ter¬ 
rible thing has just been told me by On-Seekillie, 
and she’s now in my room with a cut in her head. 
I want her brute of a husband arrested at once. 
I’ll go into the police court myself as a witness.” 

“Jane, you dear hothead, I advise you to go 
slowly in rushing into Korean domestic affairs. 
You’ll get beyond your depth in a wonderfully 
short time.” 

“ I’d rather be a hothead than a cold, crawling 
snail, Miriam Sanderson. I understood that On- 
Seekillie was a Christian, and one of your church 
members.” 

[61 jj 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ She is, and a good one, too. That is the reason 
she is beaten up by her heathen husband. Look at 
the baby, Jane. She wants to come to you. It is 
time for me to teach the Monday Bible class for the 
women. On-Seekillie is a member of that class, 
and we’ll ask for special prayer for her at this 
time.” 

“ Special prayer, fiddlesticks! ” I stormed. “ She 
needs something beside special prayer, and I’m 
going to see that she gets it. You may pass by 
on the other side if you want to, but I am 
going to take On-Seekillie over to the hospital 
and have her head dressed, and then I’m going 
down to the village to take her family away from 
that brute of a man. Her little girl, almost a 
baby, is there, and she may be dead from exposure, 
right now.” 

“ The baby is all right,” replied Miriam. “ She 
followed her mother up here from the village, and 
sat down in front of the house and cried until John 
and David piloted her around to the kitchen. The 
cook is now probably feeding her our rice and 
kimchi from his own bowl. You may do as you 
please, but I know Korean family affairs are a 
hopeless tangle, and the only thing that can bring 
order out of this turmoil is the love of Jesus Christ 
in the individual heart, and that’s the reason I leave 
my baby and boys at home now, and go to teach 
[ 62 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


this Bible class. There is no other hope for these 
people.” 

I didn’t stop to listen, as I recognised the 
symptoms of a sermon, but hurried back to my 
room to drag On-Seekillie, by force or reason, over 
to the hospital. 

“ Pueen, I’d rather go over to the Bible class. I 
can tie up my head. It doesn’t ache much.” 

“ You are a perfect Oriental. You haven’t the 
least practical sense. That cut may become in¬ 
fected, and then you’ll die. Never mind that class, 
come with me.” 

“ The baby? ” she inquired, “ where is she? ” 

“ She’s all right. She’s in the kitchen warm and 
comfortable, and I’m going to take you to Anne, to 
have your head dressed.” 

Anne’s deft fingers bound up the wound, and 
Dr. McCloud, entering the dispensary, as we were 
about to leave, said heartily, “ Miss Jane, this is 
great. That woman is worth anything you can do 
for her. That man will kill her some day if she 
isn’t protected. Cut in the temple, this time, Miss 
Anne? ” 

“ Dr. McCloud, can’t we have her husband im¬ 
prisoned ? ” I asked. 

“ Not for beating his wife—in this country. 
That’s custom. Moreover, she would die before 
she would endure the disgrace of having him pulled 

[ 63 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


before the magistrate. That woman doesn’t feel 
the hurt of the blows ten minutes after they are 
given. Her faith lifts her above physical pain.” 

“ You’re just like all missionaries. Don’t tell 
me that any mental exaltation can lift that woman 
above the stinging pain of such cruelty. I am 
going to take care of her myself.” 

“ How ? ” asked the doctor with a quizzical look. 

“ I shall bring her and her children up to that 
empty sarang below the compound. I’d never sleep 
if we knew she were in the hands of that brute 
again.” 

“ I admire your grit. But you have done some¬ 
thing when you have taken a Korean family 
under your care. I’ll come down to help you 
when you are ready to move them. Sometime this 
evening? ” 

“ Yes, before dark. They ought to be housed 
before that man returns. He will make a struggle 
to keep them.” 

“ I’m with you, Miss Jane,” said the doctor, as 
he stood in the door of the dispensary. 

“ Be sure you come down to her house before 
sun-down,” I called to him as we left. 

On-Seekillie was the most obstinate thing when 
I told her of my plan. She was actually loath to 
leave that terrible man, mother, and begged to be 
allowed to go on at her poor dying rate of living. 

[ 64 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


“ Oh, Pueen, I’m afraid to leave him,” she begged. 
“ He will surely kill me when he finds that I have 
run away from him. And it is my little house I 
am going to leave, and—and—the tables and mats 
and sleeping quilts were given to me by my mother. 
I do love him though he beats me.” 

“ You’re just like any other woman, though you 
were raised in a heathen land,” I said angrily. 
“ But you are going to obey me in this. You are 
going to have a better home, too, this very night.” 

“ I am grateful, grateful to you, Pueen. I will 
go if it is God’s will, but I know He would have 
helped me. I do not want to trouble you.” 

That afternoon I mounted Ginger, and left the 
compound for a glorious gallop through the maze 
of the rice fields, then on further to the slopes of 
Mootung San, the great mountain just three miles 
away from the compound. Ginger’s high mettle 
and swift motion, in the cool rush of the opposing 
air, was delicious excitement to me, and I rode on 
and on, with no thought of time. 

Suddenly, I realised that the shadows were 
creeping in great, black blotches along the western 
slopes, and as I rose in the saddle and looked 
across the rocks and ravines stretching toward the 
valley below, I knew we had gone too far to make 
the return to the compound before sun-down. My 
heart failed me as I pictured On-Seekillie waiting 

[ 65 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


for me in Korean helplessness. “ The Ruler ” 
might reach her now, before I could. It was sick¬ 
ening, and I blamed my thoughtlessness. 

In a flash, I thought of the short cut to the main 
road that lay through the Temple grounds just 
above me. I urged Ginger forward, and turned his 
head toward a pine thicket. The climb was in dead 
earnest. The loose earth slipped beneath his feet 
as the brave fellow toiled and strained to regain the 
path above. The stunted pine-trunks offered but 
slight foothold, and the stiff branches closed about 
us spitefully. 

The trail was gained, but the horse’s flanks were 
heaving deeply. 

“ Oh, Ginger,” I said, patting his quivering neck, 
“that was a cruel climb, and we’re going down 
now, and you’ll not feel the sharp edges of the 
stones if you gallop swiftly enough.” 

Down and down through the ravine we swept, 
toward the Temple enclosure. The great wooden 
gates were bolted for the night, but at the sharp 
tap of my riding whip upon the ancient drum that 
was hung at the entrance an old priest appeared, 
and with a dazed expression swung back the doors 
upon their creaking hinges, at my command. 

If caught, he would have to do penance for that 
act. With a bold leap Ginger cleared the water¬ 
fall at the base of the Temple steps, and I turned 

[ 66 ] 




JANE'S LETTERS 


to wave a grateful “ goodbye ” to the blinking old 
priest above. 

The broad plain of the lower valley was reached, 
but not before twilight. I pulled rein to slacken 
Ginger’s speed, as we neared the outskirts of the 
village, where On-Seekillie lived. A slow drum¬ 
ming came from the line of low huts that lay like 
thatched bee-hives in the gathering dusk. 

“ That can mean but one thing,” I said to myself 
with a sinking heart. “ Someone has called in the 
village sorcerer. He is chanting and drumming to 
drive the demons out of some poor mortal, and oh, 
it may be On-Seekillie. Her husband has returned, 
and oh, God, what may he not be doing to her! ” 

I urged Ginger on. The road seemed leagues 
long as we flew down its white stretches, scattering 
amazed jickey men to the right and left. From 
Ginger’s mount I looked over the stone walls of 
the Korean enclosure. Yes, the sorcerer was seated 
upon the ground before On-Seekillie’s house, and 
with fearful din was pounding his hour-glass drum 
in weird Oriental cadences. This sound always 
chills my bones, and strikes dread to my very soul. 
But this time, mother, it was not the wild wail that 
made me sicken and turn faint, but a white object 
that w r as barely discernible upon the floor of the 
little room beyond—dimly visible through the 
swinging paper door. Just above this still object 

[ 67 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


bent a Korean man with upraised ironing stick in 
his hand. As Ginger rode at full speed to the outer 
gate, slightly ajar, I urged him forward with a 
heavy blow of the whip, and the weak bamboo 
gate gave way with a crash as his great body 
plunged into the enclosure before the house. 

The squatting sorcerer unbraided his legs, and 
fled in terror, throwing his drum-sticks as he went. 
Ginger made one curvette, and whirling, dropped 
his forefeet into the top of the drum. With a 
quick glance into the house I saw the ironing stick 
fall of its own weight upon the helpless form below. 
The Korean man turned to see what black devil 
the sorcerer had conjured up. His eyes bulged 
with terror, as he caught sight of the towering 
genie that was entering his home in the gathering 
dark. He came crouching out of the low door, and 
I raised my whip. In the lowest talk I could com¬ 
mand I said, “ Stop beating that woman, or I’ll 
strike you! If you kill her, you will be killed, too.” 

“ It’s the foreign woman,” he gasped. Then, 
recovering his suavity in true Oriental fashion, he 
bowed low, and said, “ Great Lady, have you eaten 
your honourable rice ? ” 

“ Why are you beating On-Seekillie ? ” I de¬ 
manded. “ Unbind her this instant, and let her 
come to me. She’s bleeding horribly.” 

“ That thing in there ? ” he asked in contempt. 

[ 68 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


“ That’s the ‘ inside of my house’ (Korean word 
for wife). She meant to run away, so I am taking 
the devil out of her. I regret that I cannot offer 
entertainment to my high guest, the Great Lady. 
My house is in disorder, as you see. All of my 
possessions have been loaded upon a jickey, and 
were to have been taken to another place, but I’ll 
block that now.” 

“No you won’t,” I said in white heat. “Your 
helpless family is coming with me. I shall protect 
them. You shall help me move, too. Get under 
that jickey and load it upon your shoulders im¬ 
mediately. You are going to carry those house¬ 
hold things up to my sarang ” 

For a moment he stood looking at me out of his 
narrow eyes, and blinked as though blinded by a 
bright light. Then he laughed in a hateful way 
and reached for something behind him. Quick as 
a thought Ginger reared his great length high above 
the eaves of the thatched roof, and as he came 
down I brought my whip full across the face of 
that Korean in stinging authority. With a growl 
of pain and anger he fell forward. Ginger just 
missed him with his hoofs as he reared again. I 
was not afraid, for I knew the craven nature of the 
man before me was cowed, and that there was no 
strength in him. 

As he staggered to his feet I threw myself from 

[ 69 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


the horse, and going over to the quaking sorcerer, 
who was crouching by the wall, I said in Korean, 
which he understood, “ Hold this bridle, and hold 
it tight. That horse of mine is a bigger and blacker 
devil than any you can conjure up with your drum¬ 
sticks. If you let him pull the bridle out of your 
hands he will unfold his wings and fly away with 
you upon his back, and you’ll never see Kwangju 
again.” With hands that trembled he took the 
reins and held on for dear life, while Ginger pawed 
the earth. 

As I turned to On-Seekillie’s husband I saw him 
stoop to pick up something, and start toward the 
door of the hut. 

“ No, you don’t,” I exclaimed in anger. “ I 
have need of that knife myself. I am going to cut 
the cords that bind On-Seekillie.” With a quick 
movement I was ahead of him, and had secured 
the knife. 

“ I wasn’t after that knife,” he growled. “ I 
want my overcoat and hat. I’ll not leave this house 
without them.” 

“ To be sure,” I said a little hysterically, in relief 
at the subjection of the foe. “ Here they are, and 
be quick about getting under that jickey and mov¬ 
ing on, it’s dark and we must get up to that 
sarang” I cut the cords which bound On- 
Seekillie. She lay a moment, passively, until I 

170 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


unbound the rag about her mouth, then she sprang 
for the door. 

“ My boys, my boys, Pueen, where are they ? ” 
she cried. “ He surely did not kill them. They are 
his valuable sons. Call them, search for them 
quickly.” 

“ Be quiet a minute, On-Seekillie,” I com¬ 
manded. “ I’ll go in search of them.” 

I swung the rawhide whip as I went into the 
yard. Whatever of fierce rage and hatred that 
Korean gnetleman might have felt was carefully 
controlled as he deliberately tied on his white over¬ 
coat, and adjusted his gauze fly-trap hat. 

His Korean self-respect was assured when these 
articles were regained. With outward calm, but 
with a look of malice at me, he stooped and thrust 
his arms through the straw-plaited ropes of the 
jickey, and raised it upon his back. With a slow 
step and a backward look at Ginger prancing by 
the stone wall, he went through the gate. I turned 
to look for the children. Upon the mud floor of 
the shed that answers for a kitchen in this land, 
On-Seekillie was frantically turning over piles of 
bundled grass and searching furiously behind 
everything that could hide a child. 

“ They are not here, they are not here. Pm 
afraid. Oh, Pueen, help me find them,” she 
wailed. 


[ 71 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Stifled by the odours of that kitchen and the 
sight of the blood-covered woman in her frantic 
efforts to find her children, I walked around the 
house to the open well. With a start I saw the lid 
of a huge earthen jar lift uncannily, as two brown 
heads and four black eyes appeared at the brim. 

I uttered a cry of delight and relief, and 
On-Seekillie threw herself upon the children. 

“ We want out,” they yelled with one voice. 
“ It’s smelly in here.” 

“ I’m glad you noticed that,” I remarked, as I 
helped them out of the jars, “ for I always thought 
cabbage and turnips were the elixir of life to you.” 

" But that kimchi is spoiled,” they wailed. 

“ Just so,” I assented. “ Now, you youngsters 
help your mother gather up your rice bowls and 
come with me. But keep in the rear, you surely 
need a bath.” 

“ Where’s father?” asked the children, creeping 
up to their mother. 

“ Don’t be afraid of him. He’s gone,” I told 
them. “ Now do as I tell you, and run around to 
the front of the house.” 

With fear in every action the little fellows 
clasped hands and crept slowly along the side of 
the wall. 

“ Pueen, Pueen!” I soon heard in shrill tones. 
Grasping On-Seekillie in alarm and wondering 

[ 72 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


what fresh domestic complications might be before 
me, I rushed to the scene. 

Oh, mother, what a sight was there! That 
sorcerer, with true Korean instincts, had jerked 
Ginger’s bridle until the big black fellow was 
frothing with rage. By a mighty effort he had 
torn away,—then starting back and standing over 
the Korean had snatched at his top-knot with his 
teeth, and at that moment was shaking him in 
mid-air like a rat. The native was almost dead 
from fright. 

“ Drop him, Ginger! ” I cried, hurrying toward 
them. “ You’ll scalp him sure. Drop him, I say! ” 
Ginger looked at me a moment, rolled his eyes, and 
then gave him another shake. The ludicrous sight 
was too much for my overwrought nerves, and 
I sat down upon the ground in uncontrollable 
laughter. On-Seekillie looked on in distress. 

Someone entered the gate, and I heard a deep 
American voice tinged with authority and heaps 
more, saying, “ Miss Jane! Are you hurt? ” 

“ That Ginger,” I exclaimed, catching my breath. 
“ Stop him, or he’ll kill that man.” The doctor 
snatched at the bridle. Ginger gave one last shake 
and tossed the sorcerer against the stone wall. 

“That chumjangie probably thinks Ginger is 
some kind of an enchanted dragon, and he’s mighty 
glad to get off with his life,” I said. 

[ 73 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ But how about you ? ” asked the doctor, as he 
tried to take in the situation. 

“ I’ll be all right as soon as you help me to my 
feet. For goodness’ sake let’s get away from this 
house and settle this family for the night. Have 
you a lantern ? ” 

On-Seekillie had thrown her arms around me, 
and was crying helplessly, and the two boys 
clinging to her skirts added to the din by howling 
lustily. 

“ Mercy, what a scene—my whole family going 
bad,” I said, almost ready to cry. 

With quiet mastery the doctor swept On- 
Seekillie to Ginger’s back, and I held the horse 
while he commanded the Korean woman to hold 
on tight. He lifted the two boys to place them 
behind their mother, but almost dropped them as he 
exclaimed, “ Great Scott, who dropped them in the 
kimchi barrel ? They smell like—” 

“ Never mind,” I said soothingly, “ they really 
aren’t much worse than your hospital, and they are 
going to have a bath this very night.” 

“ You are the limit, Miss Jane. Why didn’t you 
wait until I came to help you move this family? 
I was delayed in the dispensary. I lost ten pounds 
when I saw you there upon the floor.” 

“ On-Seekillie couldn’t wait. She was being 
killed.” 


[ 74 ] 




JANE S LETTERS 


“And you tackled that man alone? Where 
is he? ” 

“ Didn’t you meet him with a jickey on his back 
as you came down ? ” 

The doctor stopped our little procession, and 
looked me squarely in the face. “ And you—you 
forced him to move his family possessions up to 
the compound! Girl, you’re the greatest thing out 
from America yet.” 

“ Oh, don’t,” I said, “ it’s a perfect mess. It all 
happened because I was late, and there’s a poor, 
old, Buddhist priest back at the Temple probably 
getting forty stripes at this minute, because I made 
him open the gates after the closing bell, and 
On-Seekillie’s all beaten up, and—and—” The re¬ 
action was proving too much for me, and the tears 
were coming—but the sight of On-Seekillie’s hus¬ 
band, dignified and haughty in his long, white 
overcoat, plodding along under that jickey saved 
the day. 

My family was disposed of, and safely settled in 
the sarang. In forcible and convincing words Dr. 
McCloud told that Korean man what would happen 
to him if he molested his helpless family again, and 
sent him out into the night. 

There was a flash in his eye, and a peculiar ten¬ 
derness in his voice as he bade me “ good night.” 
I did not go into the house at once, but sat down 

[ 75 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


upon the balustrade of the porch, and watched his 
lantern swinging in unison with his long tread, 
down the path to the hospital. 

I'm quite sure the members of this mission will 
have a station meeting to decide what to do with 
me, but do not worry, mother, Fm having a tre¬ 
mendous time wandering around out here at will in 
this mission field. 

I love you heaps, 

Jane. 


Mother Mine: 

It was field day with the lepers, and Dr. McCloud 
asked me to ride with him to the colony to watch 
the sports. A long time I had wanted to make this 
little journey, but when it has been suggested the 
missionaries have always said: “ Not yet. Wait 
until you have been here awhile. Wait until your 
sensibilities have become a bit hardened.’ , 

The day was glorious. Autumn tints had 
touched the maples of the compound road, and the 
low shrubbery by the path, further on, was russet 
and gold and bronze. Ginger curvetted and danced 
in high mettle, and I laughed a challenge to the 
doctor for a test of speed. As I turned in the 
saddle, Ginger jumped aside with a snort of terror. 
A dark form,—something with stary eyes—had 
moved in the brush. The doctor was at my side in 

[ 76 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


an instant. “ Do not look behind you. Ride on,” 
he called. I felt Ginger quiver, and his muscles 
tighten as he regained the path. We were in for a 
run. The doctor reached for my bridle, but I cut 
Ginger with the whip, and he broke into a wild 
gallop of terror and excitement. We rode like the 
wind. The cool rush of the air in my face was 
delicious, and miles we had covered before I had 
him under control. The doctor’s horse kept pace, 
leap for leap, with Ginger. 

As the horses, exhausted, slowed down, I turned 
to the doctor with the question, “ What was it ? ” 
in my eyes. 

“ It’s awful to have to tell you, Miss Jane,” he 
said gravely, “ but that bundle of rags with the two 
big eyes in the middle was a leper. A human being 
—a God-made human being. He is crawling on 
his hands and feet like an insect, to find shelter in 
that asylum, and we have no money now in the 
treasury with which to take him in.” 

There was a break in his voice, and it was some 
time before he could control himself enough to say, 
“ I had hoped you would not see him. Forget it. 
Turn here to the right; this trail leads over the 
hills to the colony.” 

“ But why should I be guarded always from dis¬ 
agreeable experiences ? ” I protested. “ I resent 
your oversight.” 

[ 77 ] 





JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ An American girl is a goddess,” was his an¬ 
swer. “ Why should she trail through slime when 
it is not necessary? Let us dismount and walk up 
to the first building. I want you to see Aing 
Soonie.” 

We tied our horses by the wayside, and walked 
along the narrow path. Purple-sage and golden- 
rod nodded to us as we passed. Five brick build¬ 
ings of American architecture, surrounded by vege¬ 
table gardens, were set in thrifty homeliness at the 
foot of some low hills; an open well-sweep in the 
foreground. 

“ Nothing doing,” said the doctor, striding 
lightly up the steep path, and coming back to me. 
“ Every woman on the place has put on her best, 
and has gone over to the colony of the men—where 
the field day stunts are being put on. It’s a half- 
mile farther over the hills. Shall we mount and 
canter the distance ? ” 

“ Let’s walk. Tell me about these lepers. You 
say so little about this, or any other part of your 
work.” 

“ What I have to say about it is mighty poor 
table-talk, and where else have I seen you since 
coming to Kwangju? No one talks shop on the 
tennis court, you know. I haven’t forgotten that 
once I drove you into the hold of a ship by saying 
something straight, as I believed it.” 

[ 78 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


44 I don’t hate you now as I did then. I think 
I’m different.” 

The doctor turned and, putting his arm around 
the horse’s neck, he rubbed his cheek against the 
soft brown velvet nose. He was a long time in 
answering, “Just enough different to be danger¬ 
ous.” There was another pause. 

44 Here goes for shop, then. This leper work is 
my diversion. A fellow in India once said that 
most men play golf for recreation, but that he 
played leper. Well, that describes it—I play leper.” 

44 I like that. You do not call it a 4 cause.’ 
Causes bore me.” 

He was not listening to what I said. His eyes 
were upon a strange procession of white objects— 
several hundreds of them—marching down the 
hillside in our direction. A girl of eighteen led 
them. Her oval face, rich in its olive tints, height¬ 
ened by a natural carmine on the cheeks, was 
framed in a suit of glossy black hair, gathered 
simply into a long braid that hung down her back. 
She wore a straight skirt of light blue, and a spot¬ 
less waist of white, fastened at the side with one 
tiny button. She was a lovely sight. 

44 And is she a leper ? ” I asked with a shudder. 

44 Yes, that’s Aing Soonie,” answered Dr. Mc¬ 
Cloud. 44 Two years ago I found her one morning 
huddled by the roadside near the hospital. Three 

[ 79 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


men, lepers, were with her. They had all slept in 
an old brick kiln, the night before. I never wanted 
to know more of her history; she was a slave to 
those men—that I know.” His lips closed with an 
odd twitch. 

“ I wrote to an aunt of mine about her,” he went 
on,—“ an aunt who buys a fur coat one winter, a 
new electric car the next, and tours Europe the 
next—rotates—for the sake of economy, as she 
says. I thought likely she’d want a bargain this 
year,—a human life, cheap, you know; costs about 
one-tenth of the upkeep of an electric. But she 
wrote that she couldn’t afford it.” His jaws closed 
with a snap and his eyes shone angrily. 

“ I’m a fool to tell you things like this.—They’re 
coming fast now, look at that line of boys. Kids, 
you know. They’re going to put on the stunts at 
the track meet.” 

I looked up. Behind Aing Soonie were twenty 
or thirty girls, laughing and waving friendly little 
hands to the doctor. Then came a line of boys in 
double formation. They were dressed in white 
trousers, and white jackets and wore red and blue 
baseball caps. They paused a moment to give a 
military salute, then in a wild riot broke ranks to 
rush upon the doctor. It was a boyish onslaught. 
They were about to throw themselves upon him— 
their idol, their hero. I drew a quick breath but 

[ 80 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


there was a pause, a shock, an imperceptible change, 
and every boy drew up twenty feet from us. They 
were lepers, and the invisible barrier was there. 

From a group of men in the foreground, an old 
man hobbled toward us. His feet were swathed in 
bulky bandages, and his skin had the peeled, pink 
look that comes to these people who have been 
under treatment for some time. His teeth pro¬ 
truded like those of a chipmunk, for he could not 
close his short upper lip over them. His nose was 
sunken by the disease. 

“ Hello, Chongno,” said the doctor heartily. 
“ Boys all here? ” 

The Korean bowed ceremoniously. “ Honour¬ 
able doctor, your Excellency has been selected as 
referee for the basee baw game ” 

“ All right,” assented the doctor, “ but don’t you 
call me ‘ Um-pie / If you must use English terms 
you’ll have to learn to pronounce them so they 
sound like English. Where’s your coach? I didn’t 
know you knew how to play baseball. Who 
taught you ? ” 

The whole crowd were as pleased as Punch at 
this question, for they delighted to surprise the 
doctor. 

“ Kee Haingie, your Excellency. You see he 
has all of his fingers, and we sent him down to 
stand on the hill outside the baseball grounds of the 

[ 81 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


boys’ school, and he listened well, and looked well, 
and came back to teach us. Our boys can play just 
like the boys of the school.” Their eagerness, 
community pride and yearning to live the life of 
other humans made my throat ache with the hurt 
of it. 

More than a hundred women were grouped 
under the trees at the right of the diamond. Their 
enthusiasm and enjoyment were contagious. The 
technical terms were called out in queer English, 
for there is no baseball vocabulary in the Korean 
language. The “ pitchee ” and the “ catchee ” were 
lads as bright and strong and as animated as 
American high-school boys. 

Dr. McCloud took his position behind the 
“ catchee,” and the game was started. The first 
boy up grabbed the bat with fingers that were 
missing at the first joint, but the direct, full swing 
of his stroke carried the ball far to left field. A 
yell from five hundred enthusiastic rooters split the 
air, as he slid to second. I found myself shouting 
too as the game progressed and the excitement 
mounted. At my side in ecstatic motion was a tiny 
child not over eight years of age. My, but she was 
cunning with her long skirt reaching to the ground, 
and her very short, little, old jacket buttoned tight 
over her flat chest. Crystal beads of perspiration 
stood out upon her pug nose, and her laughing eyes 

[ 82 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


- . — ■ -TJTia a 

glanced from out of her kitten face. With every 
crack of the bat her little feet left the ground, and 
like a toy on springs she bounced up and down in 
delicious excitement. I wanted to hug her. I 
wanted her for my very own—Oh, God, she was 
a leper! 

Suddenly the pity, the horror, and the signifi¬ 
cance of the whole scene gripped me with the icy 
fingers of a winter wind. Here was beauty and 
young life, wistful age, pulsing hopes, ambitions, 
all—all—in the relentless clutch of a fiend, a demon 
of disease. The sight of those eager, laughing 
faces, many of them twisted and distorted with 
paralysis, all bent upon the fun of the moment, 
swept me with such a revulsion of feeling that I; 
could not endure it another second. That great, 
healthy doctor in the midst of that grewsome circle 
of gargoyles, with here and there the curves of a 
soft girlish face, seemed a hideous impersonation of 
a Tibetan Buddha, surrounded by the convolutions 
of a hundred sprites, demons and angels. Without 
a sound, without a word to him, I ran down the 
path and followed a narrow trail along the hillside. 
Only there could I breathe freely. I tried to forget 
it, to put away the images that floated before my 
sight. Flowers and tender growing vines covered 
the rising ground; but they were contaminated 
things. I might not touch them. A bane, a curse 

[ 83 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


like a foul miasm, had settled upon the whole place 
for me. Following the thread of a trail that prom¬ 
ised to lead to sweet air and unpolluted sunshine, I 
climbed the hill. In a sheltered cove under the lee 
of a huge rock, a tiny building with one opening,— 
a door—met my gaze. 

“ It must be the dwelling of some hermit, some 
recluse, who has chosen this unwholesome neigh¬ 
bourhood for his meditations and reflections,” I 
thought. In very mockery of my mood the door 
flew open, as I passed, and the thin, worn face of 
a young girl appeared as though carved in bas-relief 
against the dark panelling behind her. I screamed 
in involuntary fright at the strange apparition. An 
emaciated hand of wax beckoned to me, and a low 
voice, tender, husky, whispered to me, “ Did the 
blues or the reds win ? ” 

Oh, that ball-game of the fiends! This girl, too, 
must be a leper. I turned to shut out the sight, but 
the pleading in her great, sunken eyes made me 
answer, “ I do not know. Nothing could hold me 
there to see that game. And you, who are you ? ” 

“ Oh, I’m Soonie. This is the soul house I am 
in. I’m dying. This is the last place they put us 
before Jesus comes for us. I think I’ll go to Him 
tomorrow, or maybe the next day. But I wanted 
to tell Him about the ball-game, my brother was to 
be shortstop. It’s lonesome in here, and cold, but 

[ 84 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


a spirit that I can hear breathe is with me in this 
room. Was the doctor there?” The tears were 
rolling down my cheeks, now, and sobs, great, 
choking sobs, came to my relief. 

“ Oh, you are sorry,” said the leper girl. “ I 
wish I could pat your cheek to tell you not to cry. 
It’s lonesome, but I’m so happy. It’s dry and clean 
in here, and my dress is white. In times before, I 
slept in chimney fire-places, and nobody would talk 
to me. Tell me, don’t you think I’ll look pretty 
after I’m dead? I wish they would put blue leather 
shoes on my feet to hide the places where the toes 
aren’t. I’d like to have Aing Soonie see them. 
The Sunday before they put me in here she couldn’t 
find the place in the hymn-book because she was 
looking all the time at her new shoes, and they were 
just straw-string shoes, too. Oh, there’s the 
doctor. He’s coming to see me. Don’t you think 
he is handsome ? Aing Soonie says God made him 
after an image! ” 

She held up stumps of arms from which the 
hands were gone, but the smile that twisted about 
her thin lips threw a glory over her worn face. 

“Jane,—Miss Jane, I say,” cried the doctor, 
“this is what I wanted to keep from your eyes, 
and you are here. Do not stay in this place. Come 
with me, this experience has been too much for 
you.” He placed himself in quiet authority be- 

[ 85 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


tween me and the soul-house. The dying girl 
raised her voice and called insistently to him. 

“ The blue shoes, doctor,—don’t forget them 
before they burn my body.” 

He turned to her with a look of intense sym¬ 
pathy and smiled as he gave the promise of the kid 
shoes. But there was a catch in his voice as he 
said to me, “ You have sounded the depths of this 
place. I wanted to be with you when you saw these 
sights for the first time, but here you have stumbled 
alone into the most gruesome corners.” 

“ Burn the body ? ” I queried, dazed and stunned. 
“ And that is the meaning of that heap of faggots 
over there ? ” 

“ Come with me,” he commanded, and put my 
hand within his arm. “ The horses have been sent 
around the lower road, and we’ll find them just 
over the hill. The games are over, and you are not 
fit to stay in this place any longer.” 

“ It’s a den of horrors,” I said passionately. “ I 
feel as though I were standing over a crater of 
Hades. That little girl, those boys, and Aing 
Soonie, and now this soul house, and Soonie. Oh, 
how do you stand it ? ” 

He had led the way to a lovely spot far from the 
asylums, where azaleas and low maples tipped with 
the amber and coral of sprouting foliage, formed a 
natural bower. 


[ 86 ] 




JANE'S LETTERS 


“ What you have just seen is a bit of Paradise,” 
said the doctor presently. “ No, please do not in¬ 
terrupt me. It is Paradise to these people, and it is 
a place where the doors of Heaven may be opened 
to them. Those lepers are outside the pale to us, 
but this asylum is founded upon the rock of faith 
in Jesus Christ, and He is the Invisible Presence 
who rules its every activity.” 

“Don’t moralise,” I said, looking away from 
him, and pulling a leaf to shreds, “ tell me instead 
how you keep your poise, and oh, your very reason 
in this work.” 

He gave me a quizzical smile. “ I can keep my 
reason and sanity all right, as I go among the 
people you have just seen, for even the soul house 
here is Arcady compared with the hideous maak 
outside the gates of this compound. That is hell 
right enough, but you shall not see it, so God 
help me.” 

“ Why, I ask again, do you want to shield me in 
this way ? I know about it. In imagination I have 
visualised its ghastly crew ever since the great eyes 
of that leper stared up at me from the bush. It is 
useless to try to shield me like a child. I shall see 
those eyes, always,—at night.” 

“ I regret this, deeply regret it.” 

“ But why ? ” I asked impatiently. “ Am I not 
like other girls? Can I not help in this work? 

[ 87 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


When I go back to America I think I shall cry the 
needs of this colony from the housetops. At least 
every woman’s organisation I can reach shall hear 
my voice.” 

The doctor raised his hand and gently freed a 
white butterfly caught in a spider’s web. 

“ I feared that answer, Jane.” 

He did not say Miss Jane. I would have given 
the tip of my little finger to have been able to con¬ 
trol the pink flush that tinged my cheek. 

“ I do not understand you, Dr. McCloud. I 
know about this work now, I am it’s champion. I 
can send your treasurer hundreds of dollars, per¬ 
haps, when I go back.” 

“ Many women are doing that. I have wanted, 
oh Jane Selfridge, I have wanted, with all the 
strength of my soul, something deeper for you.” 

He had risen, and as he stood there in his glori¬ 
ous manhood there was something of a divinity 
that breathed from him. Almost roughly he 
grasped my wrists. 

“ Jane, I love you with every atom of my being. 
I cry out for you. I want you not as a champion, 
I want you as an ally—my mate,—but I cannot ask 
you to marry me. I have wanted you to give your¬ 
self to this work—then I can claim you.” 

Before his vehemence I drew back. He released 
my wrists, and turned from me with a sob. Oh 

[881 




JANE'S LETTERS 


mother mine, never has a sound like that so hurt 
my heart. I felt that we were upon a mountain 
peak where the air was too rarified for me. I could 
not breathe. Suddenly he came back, and in a 
voice, tender, deep, but under control, said, “ I have 
said the words that have been buried in my heart 
since those hours upon the boat. I want you as a 
traveller in the burning Sahara wants water, as a 
pilgrim climbing the rocky steeps of a sacred moun¬ 
tain on bleeding knees wants a vision. But God 
Almighty must give you to me. He must call you 
to the life out here. Nothing else will do. You do 
not love me now, and I am not asking you to try. 
Your life here in this God-forsaken land would be 
a failure if you entered it because you loved me. I 
must have something else.” 

I was choking with wounded pride. 

“You are putting love of this work before the 
love you offer me,” I burst out. “ I shall not 
listen to you further.” 

Oh, how hollow, futile, contradictory and foolish 
those words sounded as I uttered them, in the face 
of his great passion and sacrifice, and all I had felt 
of deeper stirrings that day! My pitiful, little emo¬ 
tions seemed to dwarf and dwindle in the presence 
of this Galahad,—and in revolt against him and his 
sounding perfections I hurried down to where the 
horses were tied. In the lowering twilight we 

[ 89 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


rode home together, but I could not speak to 
him again. 

Mother, I feel like the Lady of Shalot, caught in 
the mesh of the broken strings of her loom. Moun¬ 
tain tops are too rarified for me. I wish Dave 
were here. He is an ant-hill. 

Yours in a Maze, 

Jan£. 

April, ip—. 

Mother Mine: 

Tomorrow we leave for Mokpo, and from there 
sail for the island of Quelpart, or, as the Koreans 
call it, the island of Chaiju, in the Pacific Ocean. 
It may be years before you receive this diary-letter, 
recording my adventures, for I am certain that 
upon this voyage I shall discover the island of my 
dreams, and that I shall be shipwrecked upon its 
distant shore. Miriam declares that this particular 
island is inhabited, and she is sailing with the ex¬ 
press purpose of holding a Bible class for women 
among the natives. Anne goes with her to heal all 
manner of diseases, and to advertise the hospital, 
while I, they think, ship as ballast. But in reality I 
have decided that in some way I’m going to be cast 
upon an unknown coast, and I’m going to take up 
the life that Robinson Crusoe laid down when he 
was rescued, and came back to civilisation. I have 

[ 90 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


borrowed Dan’s gun, and shall take the dog Kim, 
much to Anne’s disapproval. 


Some Days Later. 

My dreams have come true. I’ve been good all 
these years for this one purpose. My prayer, hope, 
ambition and aim for eighteen years has been to be 
shipwrecked as Robinson Crusoe was, and now 
I’ve arrived. It was partly Providential, but I 
helped some. 

We sailed at Mokpo for the Southern Seas in a 
boat manned by aboriginal Japanese. Our quarters 
were below, amidships, where in a stuffy cabin 
seventeen natives were already stretched out in 
shocking dishabille. After inspecting this sleep¬ 
ing apartment, with one accord we rushed up 
the stairway and voted to stay on deck during the 
voyage. 

It was a wonderful day as we drew anchor and 
curved, outward bound, among a thousand islands. 

“ Oh, Anne, it’s the sea, the sea, and it’s the 
Pacific,” I cried. “ This craft is tiny and frail, and 
we’ve every chance of being shipwrecked. Look at 
that stern and rockbound coast ahead; it is an 
island, and oh, so lonesome. There’s the yawning 
mouth of the cave that winds back to the dragon’s 
lair.” 

“ Only that yawning cave is a fisherman’s cove, 

[ 91 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


and that island has a teeming population of forty- 
three Koreans,—all descendants of one patriarch. 
The missionary who itinerates there told me all 
about those people,” Anne replied. That girl 
always was a perfect kill-joy. 

“Jane, listen to me,” said Miriam, cuddling 
down upon a coil of rope, and putting a little, cold 
hand into mine. “ The story of the conquest of 
these lovely islands is more wonderful than any 
fairy story ever told. Seventeen years ago, an 
American man came to this land as a missionary. 
In one of these little boats, just outside this har¬ 
bour, during a terrible storm, he went down. His 
last cry was echoed in the heart of another man 
who came out here to take up his work. Days and 
nights, in loneliness, this man sails from island to 
island in search of lost men who are stranded upon 
these isolated shores; and to minds dark with 
superstition and fear of demons and spirits, he 
brings the flaming torch of God’s love and the 
sacrifice of His Son. Many times in cold and 
hunger has he grounded his boat upon the strand 
of one of these islands about us. Hidden within 
the heart of many of these fishermen’s coves is a 
little church dedicated to the worship of the Lord 
Jehovah. Though only a straw thatched hut, that 
building is more splendid than any storied pagoda 
or gilded temple. It was love that built it.” 

[ 92 ] 



JANE’S LETTERS 


Miriam is a darling when she looks as she did 
then, and when her clear eyes gaze off into space, 
as she tries to picture to you the deeds of the heroes 
she worships. That day I knew her heart was ach¬ 
ing with longing for the baby and the boys whom 
she had left with Mrs. Preston. I drew her up to 
me tight. 

“ Saint,” I whispered, “ I’ll listen to your little 
preaching if you will tell me that that mission¬ 
ary is big, and virile, and athletic, and loses his 
temper at times; and doesn’t preach over thirty 
minutes to us suffering Americans when he is in 
the station.” 

“ He’s seldom in the station, Jane, he’s middle- 
aged, and his hair is thin, and he’s near-sighted. 
He has lived out here for twenty years. His wife 
and baby lie on the hillside back of the compound, 
and he goes alone among these islands.” She 
paused for a moment and then went on, “ How I 
wish you could love church services, Jane.” 

“ Well, I don’t, especially out here where one 
hasn’t even the diversion of hats to study. Wasn’t 
that a whale that flopped his tail, out there upon 
the horizon, Anne ? ” I called. 

“ A dolphin, probably.” Anne was seated at the 
point farthest north of the odours of the kitchen, 
and was lost in the beauties of the scenery. 

“ Have you never felt the Spirit of God calling 

[ 93 ] 


l 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


you to a life of love and sacrifice for Him? ” con¬ 
tinued Miriam. 

“If you mean a wild, uncomfortable beating of 
the heart when I happen to go to an evangelistic 
meeting, yes, but I get away from that feeling.” 

“ Oh, don’t, sister.” Miriam’s eyes filled with 
tears. “ It’s dangerous. You make your heart so 
callous and your ears so deaf that a time may come 
when these things will not move you, and you will 
be dead spiritually. Why do you not yield ? ” 
(She’s so much like you, mother.) 

“ Because I could not follow my own will. I 
could not plan my own life.” 

“ Little sister, there is some other lion in the 
path. Years ago, you said it was the fear of 
having to become a minister’s wife.” 

“ Indeed it was. Didn’t I see how mother had 
to scrimp and slave and skimp to keep up appear¬ 
ances, and how she had to be all things to all women 
until her individuality was worn absolutely to zero. 
A crowd of mediocre church members hung about 
her neck like a millstone, and she was drowned in 
the depths of a sea of special meetings, special 
music, and special programs, put forth to interest 
and work up enthusiasms in a congregation that 
demanded religious entertainment and ecclesiastical 
emotions at the least possible cost of exertion to 
themselves.” 


[ 94 ], 




JANE’S LETTERS 


“ But exquisite returns were the price of that 
self-effacement. Her touch turned to gold many 
a life of dross. I do not understand you, Jane.” 

Mother, I could not tell Miriam, but Mahlon 
McCloud has become my lion in the path. 
Never, now, can I yield to a call to give my 
life to God. He has made it impossible. God 
will not accept a sacrifice that is so openly and 
patently a bribe. The door of missionary effort 
is closed to me, even should I knock thereat, which 
I, Jane Selfridge, am not willing to do. I did not 
answer her. 

“ God is not a malicious master who delights in 
tormenting His subjects by driving them to imr 
possible tasks. He has planned a wonderful life 
for you, and is continually calling you to follow 
His guidance. 

“ Listen while I tell you a story that has in¬ 
fluenced me powerfully. As Ole Bull, the musi¬ 
cian, was once passing down a street, he heard the 
most awful discords coming from the interior of 
a blacksmith shop. He stopped to listen. Across 
an old violin the blacksmith was drawing a bow, 
and a fearful jargon of unmelodious sounds filled 
the air. 

“ ‘ Give the violin to me/ demanded the master. 
Ungraciously the blacksmith released the instru¬ 
ment, and at once the whole air was alive with a 

[ 95 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


burst of melody that made men listen. The black¬ 
smith fell to his knees in ecstacy, as he said, ‘ Oh, 
Master, I had been trying to find those notes for 
twenty years, and was in despair. The harmony 
was there, but only your hand could bring it into 
being. I’ll never play that violin again, but live 
upon the divine strains I have heard.’ That is con¬ 
secration. Yield the life that you have been trying 
to play upon, into the Master’s hand and He will 
draw forth a divine melody that will bless hun¬ 
dreds with its sweetness.” 

“ Saint Miriam,” I said, “ the cords of your 
being vibrate easily to a divine touch, but I’m 
different. It’s growing dark, and you will have to 
go below into that horrible hold. I shall stay on 
deck. My slicker will protect me.” 

“But the wind is rising, and it will be cold 
tonight.” 

“ I shall wrap myself in the blankets.” 

“ The captain will order you below.” 

“ I do not understand Japanese, and I’ll not go.” 

Miriam was ready to cry, but Anne saved 
the situation like a good sport. “Very well, 
then, help me unfold this cot,” she commanded 
professionally. 

Within a very short time I was pinned up in 
blankets like a mummy—a hot water bottle at my 
feet, and stowed away in the stem of the boat 

[ 96 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


with a great barricade of baggage between me and 
the curious crew and passengers. 

The propeller churned the sea below, and threw 
a floating veil of silver phosphorus backward along 
the black waters. The stars drew up in serried 
ranks at the roll-call of the night. Like stealthy 
spies the black outlines of a hundred islands crept 
by in mysterious succession. Now and then, one 
of them, more reckless than its fellows, approached 
so near our ship that we almost grazed its side, and 
there were moments when I was mortally sure that 
we should bump into one of them and topple it 
over into the sea. 

I could not sleep. The ghost of Miriam’s mis¬ 
sionary walked those waters, and not for a moment 
could I forget him. “ I could love a work like 
that,” I said to myself. “ I do not wonder at its 
fascination. To feel that a people really needed 
you, and that Jesus Christ was a new Being, and 
that you could bring God to them! There would 
be inspiration in that. I shouldn’t mind going 
hungry and cold, too, if I were doing something 
worth while.” 

I closed my eyes to open them in a little while to 
the glories of the night. Those passing islands 
fascinated me, and I fell to thinking of the men 
who would fit into the life of sacrifice among them; 
the life that Miriam had outlined. 

[ 97 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Suddenly I laughed aloud as I thought of one 
of the theological students whom I had known in 
days gone by. In my imagination he was sitting 
in the stern of a smelly, little sampan bound upon 
an itinerating trip among those islands. He was 
wearing a plush cap with ear flaps carefully pulled 
down, and there was nothing of buoyant life about 
him; he was just a miserable little heap. Then, in 
a flash, came the thought of Mahlon McCloud— 
and it isn’t hard to think of him, either. He would 
sail these seas with his own hand upon the tiller, 
his head thrown back in exultation, his heavy hair 
tossed to the breeze as the canvas bellied and lugged 
beneath his strong command. Ah, he would have 
kept his eyes upon the gray and green and blue and 
black and violet mass of the moving sea, and the 
curl of its giant breakers. When his boat beached 
upon the sands of an island he’d sit by the water¬ 
side and help the fishermen mend their nets. He 
would be the one to get into their lives and show 
them how to make bigger and better nets, and how 
to cast them like Cape Cod fishermen. And, oh, 
the miracles he could work among their sick! 

But, mother, I have not seen Dr. McCloud for 
six months. He was called to Peking, the day 
after our visit to the lepers. 

Two days and two nights we sailed those seas. 

[ 98 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


Upon the morning of the third day the rumble of 
the anchor-chain told of our arrival in some port. 
We gathered on deck, a forlorn little group, and 
three wan faces at the rail peered into the mists of 
the dawn to catch the first sight of land. Before 
us? the island of Chaiju arose abruptly out of the 
sea, with no harbour whatever. There were no 
docks, nor wharf, nor any provision for the land¬ 
ing of steamers, that we could see, and our little 
boat continued to dance dizzily at anchor for 
some hours. 

“ This cargo of fish ought to have been labelled 
‘ perishable, rush/ ” said Anne. 

“ And this delay is maddening/’ I added. “ As 
a descendant of a Mayflower emigrant I demand 
more consideration. Miriam, why don’t we 
land?” All shortcomings of this Oriental land I 
always put up to Miriam, as the wife of a mis¬ 
sionary whose business it is to set things right. 

“ Be calm, my dear, I’m—I’m sure there must 
be a reason. Perhaps the sampan sailors haven’t 
sighted us yet. They may be asleep.” 

“This is a poorly managed voyage,” I said. 
“ No one gives a thought to the comfort of the 
passengers. Christopher Columbus would have 
landed us hours ago. There are fourteen hundred 
and ninety-two different varieties of fish smells 
upon this boat, and I’ve reached the end of my 

[ 99 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


endurance;—if there is no chance of a shipwreck 
I shall swim to shore.” 

Miriam smiled her ever-patient smile, while she 
silently pointed to the brown hull of a sampan 
putting out from land. 

The waves were high, and the clumsy wooden 
craft rose and fell like a tipsy gull—her one sail 
bellying full against its bamboo ribs. Swinging 
heavily to the left of our prow she hit the lowered 
gangway with a crash that ought to have shivered 
her timbers. A pitiful little company of foreigners 
upon a very foreign sea, we filed down the un¬ 
steady steps to the sampan that was rising and 
falling away from the water-sodden and slippery 
landing in a truly alarming manner. A brawny 
coolie put his arms about Miriam, another em¬ 
braced me, and a third pirate addressed himself to 
Anne, who was too ill to object to this simple 
method of handling passengers. With the other 
baggage we were thrown one at a time into the 
sampan, and firmly pinned down to the bottom by 
bales of raw hides and bags of fish. 

“If someone had thoughtfully tied us up in one 
bag, or crated or baled us up before starting upon 
this voyage it would have helped some,” I groaned. 

Besides us and the raw hides and fish, the cargo 
of that sampan consisted of Kim, our baggage, and 
an assortment of natives. Miriam was suffering 

[ 100 ] 




JANE S LETTERS 


horribly from nausea, aggravated by those fourteen 
hundred and ninety-two kinds of smells, and 
Anne’s few freckles stood out like door knobs. 

“ Think what Paul must have suffered in those 
fourteen nights on the deep,” she said, heroically. 

“ Or Robinson Crusoe,” I responded. 

“ Miriam, dear, look behind you to where those 
brown rocks are lashed by the spray of the white 
cap witches. As I live, there is a line of white 
penguins along the shore.” 

“ No, they are the Christians of the native 
church upon the island who have come down to 
greet us,” said Anne. “ Most of them have never 
seen a white face before. We are the first mission¬ 
aries to reach this island. The story of Jesus 
Christ has been carried to this faraway place by 
native Christians. I feel like putting my shoes 
from off my feet, for this is almost holy ground. 
It is the foreign mission field of a foreign mission.” 

“ Holy or not, apparently we shall all have to 
take off our shoes before we reach the shore. This 
sampan can never be beached,” I commented. 

“ We shall have to be carried upon the backs of 
coolies,” announced Miriam, with a sigh of resig¬ 
nation, never taking her gaze off those white 
objects lined up on the shore. 

Oh, mother, that landing was wretchedly un¬ 
romantic. Robinson Crusoe managed it so much 

[ 101 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


better. There I was, thrown off upon a desert 
island from the shoulders of a coolie, and a wet, 
slippery coolie at that! I had never imagined it in 
that way; besides, that old island was a populated 
island, it wasn’t desert at all. I wanted my advent 
to be thrilling, but it was wretchedly commonplace. 
As I found myself upon the sand, I closed my eyes 
a moment to recover my breath, and to shut out 
the sight of Anne and Miriam being cast up by 
more coolies. The disappointment was keen, but 
right there I resolved that I’d never “ dwell in that 
scene of a thousand alarms,” but would seek my 
desert isle some place, sometime,—just as soon as 
I could sail away. 

Anne and Miriam recovered quickly from these 
disagreeable experiences, and hurried on toward 
the line of stiffly starched church members, natives, 
who were advancing down the shore to meet them. 

“ Jane, do come here,” called Miriam, “ some of 
these women were in Kwangju last year, and they 
want to know my sister.” It was not in my mind 
to make friends with that church delegation. I 
wanted nothing to do with them. I was thinking 
only of my lonely isle, and in my fancy I saw it 
far out to leeward. Miriam came back to me. 

“ Look, sister mine,” I said, twining my arm 
about her, “ look at the sea rolling in along the 
curved line of the beach. Look at the swell of its 

I 102] 




JANE S LETTERS 


great bulk—that gray gull flashing its white wings 
toward my island, my desert island—that tiny black 
mound that rides the sea, miles and miles toward 
the horizon. I shall follow it.” 

Miriam smiled into my eyes. “ That’s a spirit 
island. The ghost of the last man who lived there 
years ago patrols the shore. The arrows from his 
bow are poisoned, as every native knows. No 
boatman will sail in that direction.” 

“ I do not want any boatman to sail in that 
direction. I shall love the solitude.” 

“Jane, darling, do not talk about anything so 
wild. Why, you would undergo fearful hardships, 
and eat terrible things.” 

“ Or they would eat me! ” I responded lightly. 
“ Oh, Miriam, I wish I were a mermaid to dive 
into the sea, and float at will among its caves. I 
want to get away from people. I want to be 
alone.” 

Two liquid, blue eyes looked into mine with 
sisterly concern, and their owner made no reply. 

I could not say more, for systematic Anne bore 
down upon us, and directed our attention to the 
congregation awaiting us on the bluff. 

We were escorted in triumph by that devoted 
group to the low rock-built, straw-thatched church; 
their building devoted to the worship of a God they 
had known but a few years. 

1103 J 



JANE IN THE ORIENT 


The faith and love of that isolated company 
of Christians in the midst of ten thousand of 
their kind who worshipped demons, and followed 
nothing more enlightening than the teachings of 
the old sage Confucius, brought to me again a 
vision of what this work meant to Miriam and 
Anne—of its thrall and fascination. 

“ But this life is not for me,” I said, silently. 
“ I shall never yield to its lure. That is not for 
me now. Mahlon McCloud shut that door upon 
me forever. God never drafts His forces, and 
years ago I refused to be a volunteer. I shall make 
my own life. And now I must, oh, I must get 
away from everything for awhile! ” 

As we entered the door of that little church I 
drew Anne to me and whispered, “ I know there 
is a Deity right here, but how can one be im¬ 
pressed this way when this building has no belfry, 
and no spire; and there are no Gothic windows— 
not a symbol even to mark it a sacred place.” 

“ Belfries, and spires and symbols may come 
later,” returned Miriam, “ but up to now the faith 
of these simple islanders has found full expression 
in spiritual victories over the passions and wiles 
of men trained in cunning and deceit, and in deal¬ 
ings as crooked as corkscrews for generations. I 
am going to enroll these women now, and you may 
help Anne give them names.” 

[ 104 ] 




JANE’S LETTERS 


The hour had its fascination. Many of the 
women were young, and extremely modest and 
timid. But an intense earnestness and pleading in 
their black eyes brought the same thrill I had felt 
as a little girl when a deer in a park had taken a 
leaf from my hand. 

Not for happy life, though, would I let Miriam 
and Anne know that I was touched or even inter¬ 
ested in the tiny room set aside for our entertain¬ 
ment. The disquieting pleading in the eyes of 
those women blurred the vision of my witching 
island, and thrust unwelcome claims upon me as the 
daughter of a minister. 

Sleep is impossible tonight, and I am sitting in a 
little Korean room, writing by the light of a tiny 
lamp, to you, mother. I have decided in my own 
mind definitely that not even to please “ father or 
mother or brothers or sisters ” will I teach in that 
Bible class. I am fully determined to get away 
from Chaiju and from Miriam and Anne, and 
those pleading enveloping women, and their appeal. 
I know I am going to reach my mystical sea-girt 
island in some way. 

“Mither mine,” this is the last letter you will 
receive from me until I’m rescued after years of 
adventure. 

Fm wild with excitement tonight. 

Your Jane. 


[ 105 ] 















PART II 


FROM JANE’S DIARY 





II 


FROM JANE S DIARY 

In the chill dawn I dressed in warm clothes, and 
crept out of the little guest-room to find myself at 
once in the open air. Kim stretched himself, and 
set up a low whine of pleasure and welcome at my 
appearance. Three boxes of provisions and uten¬ 
sils stood by the door, the gun and ammunition 
among them. Like a fugitive from justice I stole 
down the narrow street between the cobblestone 
walls of the Korean homes, and almost collided 
with a water-front coolie who was loitering along, 
thinking of the bowl of rice and red pepper that 
was to constitute his breakfast. It took but the 
flash of a coin in his hand to persuade him to 
carry one of those boxes and the gun and am¬ 
munition to the water’s edge and load it upon a 
sampan swaying unsteadily there with the tide. 
The owner was asleep in the stern of the boat, 
and when I stepped into it and looked down 
upon him in the growing light, he rubbed his 
eyes with the back of a very dirty hand, to clear 
from his vision this apparition that loomed up in 
the early glory of the morning. “ It’s a Toke 
Gabbie” he almost screamed, “I’m a haunted man 
[ 109 ] 


JANE IN THE ORIENT 


of this earth. Take my crabs and seaweed, but let 
my boat alone.” 

In a frenzy he jumped from the sampan to the 
beach, and in the sand drew circles and weird char¬ 
acters to dispel the charms he thought I was weav¬ 
ing about him. I laughed, and would have spoken 
to him in Korean had not my ally been too quick 
for me. 

“ That Toke Gabbie came out of the sea mist,” 
he said, in an awful whisper to the old boatman, 
“and she's been wandering on the land all night. 
If you let her have your boat she’ll go back to the 
haunted island, and her spells will be broken. If 
you don’t, we are both dead men. I’ll give you 
half of the cash she gave me if you’ll shut your 
eyes while she sails away.” 

The boatman was limp from fright, but his 
wrinkled old face, green in the dim light, broke 
into a Cheshire-cat grin as the coolie thrust into 
his hand a roll of money, then drew a circle in the 
sand about him, telling him not for his sweet life 
to step outside it. With a strong practised hand 
my accomplice ran up the sail, set the rudder, and 
threw the ropes to me. The excitement of the 
adventure like a dynamic current thrilled in my 
veins, as I felt the tug of the sail ropes. The days 
of delicious voyaging over the sapphire waters of 
Lake Huron with Uncle Jim, came back to me with 

[HO] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


a rush, and like a liberated seabird I burst into a 
note of song that floated on the wind that was 
carrying us far out to sea. 

Kim whined at my feet in uneasy questioning 
until my voice assured him that all was well. Soon 
the sea birds claimed his attention, and he was in 
a quiver of animation. 

The boat was in fine trim, and, presently, the 
tricks of sailing came back to me, and I was cap¬ 
tain of my craft. To windward we steered a 
straight course, leaving in our wake a long series 
of whirlpools and disappearing dimples. Once the 
sampan veered, then poised like a thing alive, and 
shivered as though to clear her sides from the fly¬ 
ing foam. The swish and swirl of the blue water, 
the swift motion, and the salt splashes in my face 
and through my flying hair were elixir to me, and 
in the keen enjoyment of the moment I forgot the 
dangers of ragged reefs and sharp hidden ridges, 
the summits of submerged headlands that might rip 
the seams of my little craft without an instant’s 
warning. A great whitecap swerved an out-curve 
and hit us amidships, and there was a creaking of 
the mast, and a flutter and flap of canvas, Kim 
shivered as the spray broke over him, but I thrilled 
in wild excitement as I felt the sail ropes pull, and 
the sampan swing about and point for that station¬ 
ary shadow upon the horizon. 

[Ill] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


I shaded my eyes with my hand, and gazed back 
along the blue-black waters, tinged now with the 
rose and violet of the dawn, to where the little ship 
that had brought us to these faraway parts, swung 
at anchor. To my excited imagination she was the 
ship that had gone down a thousand times, (when 
I was a child) in the northwest corner of my bed¬ 
room. Mother never knew it, but nights and 
nights I had got up after a vivid dream, to grasp 
the iron rails of my little cot—sure that I was the 
captain of a sinking ship. My one childish longing 
in those days was to be cast upon a desert island, 
and now I felt that my dream had come true, and I 
was Robinson Crusoe. We sailed for hours to the 
West, running before the breeze, and skimming the 
waves like a flying fish, and then without warning 
the wind began to shift. Once, as the canvas 
fluttered and flapped in a sudden gust, my heart 
sank, and oh, I wanted my emergency pilot, Uncle 
Jim. But we caught the wind, and my craft held 
straight to her course. 

The phantom island drew nearer. Anxiously I 
looked out over the dividing spray for signs of a 
bay, or the long line of a beach, but it was some 
minutes before the silver thread of a river, winding 
in a widening course to the sea, became visible 
through the morning haze. The wind continued to 
rise and we heeled to the West, until we were under 

[ 112 ] 



FROM JANE'S DIARY 


the lee of a group of rocks that rose perpendicu¬ 
larly out of the water. The lashing surf, that 
boomed and climbed about those cliffs in certain 
warning, sent a chill to my heart, and I realised for 
the first time what a real shipw'reck might mean. 
Straight for the course of the little inlet, that 
opened in welcoming shelter from the scourge of 
the breakers, I steered the sampan. The sail 
flapped, then filled again, and impelled by the heavy 
drive of the wind and the surf we were making 
toward the safety of the bay in good form. Just 
at that second, with every rope taut, every inch of 
sail under control, every nerve strained to make the 
drive into the haven widening before us, there was 
a grinding crash, a snap, and the rudder was gone! 
We had grazed the chiseled edge of a submerged 
rock. Like a helpless bit of drift we were caught 
in the whirl of a giant breaker, and tossed like a 
toy into the air. There came a horrible feeling of 
falling into chaos, a nausea, and my heart swelled 
to bursting. One hand reached into the depths of 
Kim’s shaggy neck, and I felt his warm body 
pressed against mine. My head dropped into my 
arm, and blindfolded, I waited the end. 

That breaker swerved, receded,—then caught us 
again, and we were dashed upon the jagged teeth 
of a giant reef. ‘There was a crash of tom tim¬ 
bers, a falling away of the floor beneath, and the 
[ 113 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


waters closed over our heads. I went down until I 
felt the rocks below—and as I went, my thoughts 
were all of mother and Uncle Jim, and—and— 
someone else. I wasn’t frightened, but I wasn’t 
ready to die either. I was out for adventure only, 
but had been caught unfairly, I thought. 

Beneath the breakers we swam shoreward until 
we were thrown high upon the beach. I lay there 
awhile in quiet exhaustion and content. The roar 
of the surf seemed a thousand miles away, and I 
shook a defiant fist at the curling, clutching break¬ 
ers, balked of their prey; then lazily I rolled in the 
warm sand, and laughed at Kim in his frantic 
efforts to shake off the seaweed that tangled his 
toes. Throwing aside my water-heavy skirts, and 
dashing the spray from my eyes I set about at once 
rescuing the food-box, the ammunition and the 
gun, in true Crusoe fashion. The grip of that 
marvelous tale was upon me, and the details of 
Crusoe’s master wit and primitive instincts in 
bringing to shore the barrels and bales of pro¬ 
visions and necessities of life came back to me 
with amazing clearness. 

Again and again I swam back to where the 
sampan swayed unsteadily upon the rocks. As the 
tide rose, the wooden hulk of the damaged boat 
was lifted and carried out to sea, and all kinds of 
fearsome qualms and tremours sent the blood back 
[ 114 ] 



FROM JANE’S DIARY 


to my heart, as I watched this link between the 
known world and myself float away in the distance. 
Regrets that I had not left a note for Miriam, too, 
telling her not to search for me, made me a bit 
uncomfortable. But fears and regrets vanished as 
I realised the measure of the adventure that was 
upon me, and that was to test my powers to 
the full. 

In front of a fire of drift wood Kim and I 
stretched ourselves in happy content. What a day 
it was! The wind came in little puffs from the 
Yellow Sea, and the blue waves dashed broken 
rings of white foam about the emerald-green rocks 
that jutted from the shore. White and blue and 
green,—my favourite combination. 

A hill, almost a mountain, green below with 
bamboo and pine, but gray with a crown of rocks 
above, swelled back from the line of the sea. 
Brown, volcanic rocks that had tumbled from the 
heights above in ages past, were covered with 
tender vines and the opening buds of spring. The 
world had been created that day, and created for 
me—Jane Selfridge. A cock pheasant whirred a 
tantalising flight above, and Kim sprang after him. 

Following the path of the bird, and looking 
always for the ghost with the poisoned arrows, I 
turned from the sea toward the hill. Kim pointed 
ahead, making straight for the bamboo grove. 
[ 115 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


My aim was unsteady and the cock flew to shelter, 
but just at our feet nestled a nest (we almost 
stepped upon it) and I swept the eggs into my 
pocket. 

“ Kim,” I said, “ this is a savage wilderness, and 
you and I are free to take up the life of primitive 
man and dog just where Crusoe laid it down. Do 
you see that thatched hut over the ridge of the hill 
to the right? That’s the hut that Crusoe deserted 
when he returned to civilisation. It’s ours now,—• 
ours, of course, and we go to possess it.” 

Kim followed over the rough ground, and among 
the low azalea bushes until we reached the shelter 
which stood as evidence that man had once lived in 
that solitary place. 

The surrounding wall of mud and stone, put up 
for protection about the enclosure, had fallen into 
ruin, but it was still high enough and strong 
enough for safety. In delicious excitement, and a 
little fear I crept through the bamboo gate,—then 
threw both arms above my head and danced for 
joy. It was truly Robinson Crusoe’s hut, and the 
hut of my dreams. Its construction was of pine 
poles, dressed with infinite labour and patience, and 
joined in a frame with the few precious spikes that 
Crusoe had brought from his ship. This frame¬ 
work had been securely latticed with split bamboo, 
tied with rope made of long, tough grass. No 

[ 116 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


doubt that shipwrecked man had spent an entire 
winter rolling the rope between his palms. The 
door and its frame had been made of the same 
crooked pine, squared with an axe. This is my 
own little home now, and here is where I am sit¬ 
ting now, writing these chronicles. Outside, this 
house is walled three-fourths of the way up with 
brown rocks, and above, beneath the eaves, it is 
plastered with gray mud. A scraggy, uncombed 
thatch slopes jauntily from the ridge pole in true 
South Sea Island effect. Today I circled my 
bungalow in the pride of possession, while Kim 
ran about sniffing the tracks of a dog long gone 
before. An inquisitive lizard came out upon the 
little porch at the entrance, blinked at us, then 
flipped to shelter. 

Behind the hut were five or six earthen¬ 
ware vessels, crudely shaped and imperfectly fired. 
They were the very jars that Crusoe had so 
laboured over in the making. I knew the exact 
page in McGuffey’s Third Reader, thumb-marked 
and torn, where this story was printed. 

The door, just three feet high, stood ajar, and I 
entered. The eight-by-eight room was tight and 
cosy, and not badly out of repair. Like all Korean 
houses, the floor is formed of two layers of flat 
stones plastered over with mud. Over this crude 
floor a coarse mat of hand woven, split bamboo is 

[ 117 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


thrown. Clever Robinson had placed the kitchen 
fire-hole outside the little room in just the position 
to carry the smoke and flames through the flues 
beneath the floor, and out through a hole in the 
foundation at the farther side. In this way the 
room is heated when a fire is built in the kitchen. 
I ran around to this tiny kitchen, which is only a 
shed with a straw roof, and built a snapping fire 
in the outside fireplace, with dried sticks and grass. 

A black iron kettle (also salvaged by Robinson 
from that happy boat) is set in the low fireplace, 
and this is my stove. Ah, my little housekeeping 
arrangements would make mother and Miriam 
smile. 

As the twilight settled about us tonight Kim sat 
down beside me, and gravely watched the flames 
leap and divide,—some to be drawn under the 
stone floor of our house, and more to flaunt back 
in my face. The embers died down to a soft gray 
powder, with a glowing coal at the heart. 

“ Kim,” I said, “ this is New Year’s Day to me. 
Here’s where I begin my calendar. It’s my first 
notch in the stock. From this time on, I’m a free¬ 
born savage, and I’m rid of civilisation and all of 
its bothers. And, oh, what a life lies before us. 
But what are we going to eat for supper? ” 

Kim sniffed inquiringly at my pocket, and I 
drew forth three water-soaked biscuits, and the 

[ 118 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


pheasant eggs. We boiled the latter in the black 
kettle, and thought our supper delicious. 

The night is closing about us, and two happy, 
tired castaways are ready to throw themselves 
down upon the stone floor of Crusoe’s deserted hut, 
and sleep like children. The scream of a wild 
creature has just sounded out in the night, but I 
have Kim and the gun, and even fear cannot keep 
us awake this night. 

Miriam's Letter to Dan. 

Dearest: 

The most thoughtful man in the world is my 
husband. The letter you sent by special carrier to 
Mokpo came to Chaiju upon the boat that brought 
us here, and now I know the very latest from the 
baby, the boys and you. 

Dear, this is a class well worth the sacrifice it has 
cost. The women study the Word with the eager¬ 
ness and interest that stimulates bridge players in 
America. When we sit down to the morning’s 
work there is a thrill of expectant delight that 
animates every student; and Anne and I think we 
know now what an eagle feels when he soars from 
peak to peak in the ethereal blue. Some of the 
women who are studying are deep sea divers by 
profession. 

Dan, Jane’s distaste for Bible classes and mis- 

[119 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


sionary work in general conquered her longing to 
explore this island, and to sail among the islands 
farther out in the Yellow Sea, and she went back to 
Mokpo with the boat that brought us here, upon its 
return voyage. A water-front coolie told us how 
she had stolen down to a waiting sampan in the 
early morning, and had taken the dog, the gun, and 
one of the boxes with her. She is so beautiful, and 
so daring, too, that, Dan, I am worried a bit when 
I think of her, unchaperoned, among a lot of 
Japanese—some of them upper class officials. I 
know the child was seasick and lonesome upon that 
steamer, but surely the McNalleys in Mokpo wel¬ 
comed her, and by this time she is with you. 

I hope Dr. McCloud brought that diphtheria 
serum with him upon his return from Peking. 

I’m longing for the sight of the baby this morn¬ 
ing. Tell the boys this teaching is a frolic for 

Mother. 


from the diary 

The Day After. 

This morning was a glorious one, and I ran 
down to the shore for a swim. Beyond the shallow 
river that flows near my cottage, a jungle of foliage 
disclosed here and there a native orange tree, and 
to my joy a few yellow oranges glistened through 
the leaves. “ Delicious for breakfast,” I thought. 

[ 120 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


A bit of fear crept over me, as I glanced toward 
the dark thicket that covers the lower slopes of the 
hill behind our hut: there might be a lair hidden 
within its depths. A dead rabbit that lay by the 
path yesterday was gone. 

The sea was stained with the crimson streaks of 
dawn, and as I came out of the low brush and 
reached the open, the terror of the night was for¬ 
gotten. Searching the coast for a short distance 
we found the food box, where the waves had tossed 
it, high upon the sands. The timbers of the 
wrecked sail-boat were scattered along the shore, 
and at the sight of them I knew we were isolated, 
and that now we had no way of reaching the main 
island of Chaiju. Anne and Miriam could not 
come out to me, for no boatman would sail in the 
direction of my haunted island, and no steamer ever 
touched its lonely shore. I have gained my liberty 
now, and Fm free from the traditions and tram¬ 
mels of society, free from pleading eyes, and the 
claims and appeals of missionary work. Fm a 
primitive woman, and Fm free to live my own life 
in my own way. 


The Next Day. 

Today, Kim and I made the preliminary survey 
of our final possessions. Our desert island is a 
mountain peak thrust ambitiously from the bottom 
[ 121 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


of the sea. In ages past it has been an active 
volcano, but now it is covered with a wonderful 
growth of pine, spruce, magnolia, azalea, bamboo 
and low-growth shrubs and bushes, that form in 
places a dense jungle. A clear stream tumbles 
down the mountain-side, and flattens out as it 
reaches the shallow bay where I tried to enter when 
we were shipwrecked. Apart from this narrow 
strip of sand at the bottom of the river, the coast 
line is a series of jagged rocks pushed out into the 
ocean, and washed by the turbulent waves. Back 
from the rugged coast, terraced valleys and dark 
ravines seam the mountain side. We bagged two 
rabbits and a pheasant upon this trip, and in high 
spirits returned to our cabin. In those huge jars I 
have found some rice, the very same, I think, that 
Crusoe reaped the third year of his shipwreck. 
Tomorrow, I shall thresh these grains in a bowl 
that this castaway chiseled from a round rock. 
His wooden pestle still stands by the stone mortar. 
The contents of the food-box were unhurt, but it 
took me hours and hours to pound it open with a 
stone mallet. 


Days Later. 

Near the summit of the mountain, hidden, is a 
bower of azalea and native magnolias, I have found 
a rocky retreat I shall call my hermitage. A fallen 

[ 122 ] 




FROM JANE'S DIARY 


trunk of immense girth forms the wall at the rear, 
and gray rocks grown over with moss and lichens 
enclose the sides. I have covered the cool stones of 
the floor with mats woven from the sweet grasses 
of the hillside. In these opening days of spring my 
bower is a riot of latticed brown stems and tender 
green leaves. This is the retreat where I go to 
write, and to dream dreams and watch the butter¬ 
flies lay their velvet wings against the petals of the 
wild flowers. I spied a tiny fawn one day, there, 
and I longed to put my arms around its neck, and 
snuggle my cheek against its satin side. I think I 
can easily become good in this wild and woodsy 
place. I hope Miriam isn’t too much alarmed, but 
she and Anne are so busy that they’ll hardly 
miss me. 

What a spicy, pungent odour this shrub that 
bends over my bower has, and oh, there must be 
sandal-wood near. I wish Anne were here, too, to 
get these fragrant odours; so different from the 
iodoform and carbolic acid smells of that hospital! 

Another Day. 

Arose at daybreak and ran down to the beach for 
a morning swim. The breakers were high, and I 
laughed aloud as I dived beneath them in exciting 
contest—my strength against theirs. Throwing 
my arms above my head, I floated in upon the crest 

[ 123 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


of one curling white-cap that threw me high upon 
the shore. I rolled over in the sand, then started 
to my feet in surprise. For a moment I almost 
doubted my sight, but I shook the water from my 
face, and stooped once more to look at the object 
in the sand. It was—yes, there could be no doubt 
of it—a native sandal made of twisted ropes of 
straw. Of course it was Friday’s, I knew in a 
little while, but I knew, too, that some boat had 
landed upon my shore while I slept. My heart 
pounded uncomfortably at the thought. Kim 
sniffed at the sandal and looked into my face 
with one ear cocked, and his head turned in puzzled 
attention. We walked back and searched the shore 
eagerly for traces of the boat that must have 
brought Friday, and perhaps his cannibal compan¬ 
ions, to this faraway island. We examined every 
inch of the sandy beach for footprints; we climbed 
the rocks that jutted into the sea along the coast, 
and gazed fearsomely down their dark caves for 
the white bones that might remain as evidence of 
a cannibal feast. The excitement was delicious and 
real; but a hateful thought swept me—a captive 
man, Friday, or a devoured man, Friday, fitted into 
my castaway experiences exactly, but a man Friday 
who might have escaped his captors, and was at 
this moment at large upon my island! 

I shuddered at the thought of what a wild man, 

[ 124 ] 



FROM JANE'S DIARY 


Friday, roaming my groves and ravines and rocks 
would be. My freedom was gone, and I sat down 
and cried. Suddenly the whole adventure was 
hateful to me. I picked up the shoe and examined 
it again. It was a smaller shoe than that worn by 
the average Korean man—Friday could not be a 
big man, he might be a boy! The thought was of 
some small comfort, but the joy of the day was 
gone for me. Kim and I returned to the cottage, 
and I spent some time repairing the lock that had 
once secured the door. 


The Day After. 

Have not dared to wander from my little en¬ 
closure. Have been beating out rice and building 
higher my stone wall. My hands are blistered, 
and my head is hot. I may have a fever and 
die in this isolated spot. Have just thought— 
perhaps Friday may be tied to a tree, a captive 
Friday after all; and perhaps his companions 
intend eating him, and if I stay quietly at home 
they may never find me. 


The Next Day. 

That shoe may belong to the ghost. It may be a 
phantom shoe that appears only now and then, and 
floats back into the sea. Strange I never thought 
of this before. 


[ 125 J 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


3 


Sometime in May, IQ —. 

It is very irksome indoors. I am a prisoner, and 
know I shall have a fever and only my bones will 
be discovered years later, if this continues. Tried 
reading the Bible,—Crusoe did, you know. But 
Bibles for me are bewitched, and always open at 
some uncomfortable chapter like the twelfth of 
Romans, “ I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacri¬ 
fice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your rea¬ 
sonable service.” I shall read no more. 

Date Unknown. 

I shall be a prisoner no longer. I need the up¬ 
land paths, the freedom of my haunts, and the game 
my gun will bring down. My stores of food and 
ammunition are running low, and I want the fruit 
and berries that grow upon the mountain side. I 
have Kim and the gun, and under the open sky I 
can breathe more easily; and this childish state of 
nerves will leave me. 


Another Day. 

This morning I climbed the highest peaks of my 
mountain retreat. A gray eagle circled above, and 
breathless with the feel of freedom and release 
from fears, I threw myself down upon the cool 
grasses of my hermitage to watch the sweep of the 

[126 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


great wings in the blue above. Ferns and grasses 
pressed my forehead as with a human touch. I 
could hear the click and creak and twist of rusty 
little legs and joints burrowing in the grass about 
me. This primitive life and beauty has been here, 
spread out in perpetual pageantry during all the 
days of my imprisonment, and senseless fears. 
The joy of life is coming back to me, the blood 
courses swifter through my veins! 

A Day in May. 

I wander at will, now, among the moss-covered 
boulders of the upper heights, and the cathedral 
spires of the summit. This morning, as the stars 
paled, I crept out of the hut, and Kim and I 
climbed to the pinnacle of the mountain crest to 
search for the eagle’s eyrie, and to watch “ as the 
dawn comes up like thunder” from the depths of 
the sea, over Japan way. The wind rustled the 
foliage of the low trees and blew soft breaths of 
perfumed coolness over my cheeks; and the torn 
shreds of a misty cloud, wandering aimlessly over 
the shrubs and long waving grasses of the hillside, 
paused to close about me, and to hang glistening 
drops of dew upon the loose strands of my hair, 
flying in the breeze. The wanton beauty of the 
morning, and the soft embraces of sympathetic 
nature stole into my being like a human caress. I 

[ 127 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


threw my arms out to catch the encircling cloud—to 
hold it, to make it mine. 

The days of restraint and confinement have 
surely dragged drearily. A rush of emotion swept 
me, and a heartache sharp and real made me know 
that I wanted to see mother and Uncle Jim and 
Miriam right that instant. With the tears dim¬ 
ming my sight I looked below, away out to the 
horizon where the sea crowded the edges of the 
island in bays and inlets, and lashed itself into a 
white fury about the ragged headlands. But the 
sight of the sea only brpught back the sense of 
irritating nervousness that had come to me with the 
finding of the shoe; and slowly, surely the con¬ 
sciousness that I was not a liberated thing, but a 
prisoner, an unwilling captive upon my island, en¬ 
veloped me like a hangman’s hood, and darkened 
the joy and ecstacy of the morning. I could not 
throw it off. The Yellow Sea was my keeper, my 
jailer. 

Kim trailed among the rocks, through the brush 
of the stocky stems of the oaks and maples and the 
dwarf bamboo. I heard the call of a pheasant, and 
the whirr of his wings, but my gun was in the hut. 
Kim came back to me with a disapproving whine, 
and looked at me quizzically. 

I turned to make the steep descent, and was sur¬ 
prised to see that I had wandered to the edge of a 
[ 128 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


perpendicular column,—a granite crag. I knew 
that to reach the bottom of that declivity would tax 
to the limit my endurance and strength. I grasped 
the rough edge of the rock and lowered myself 
down the smooth wall; a moment I swung in air, 
then closing my eyes, dropped to the ground below. 
The shock of the fall was broken by the azalea 
bushes growing in the crevices of the rocks. My 
arms and hands were scratched and torn, and a 
little while I lay there nursing them, and laughing 
at Kim, who came tumbling down another preci¬ 
pice farther on. 

An acorn fell near, then away down the slope a 
dead branch snapped; it had happened scores of 
times before, but Kim had never growled in threat¬ 
ening menace as he did then. I raised my head, 
and listened in keen excitement. A dark object 
was making its way among the azaleas and dwarf 
maples of the lower terraces. The foliage of the 
jungle below me was set in motion by a force that 
was not of the morning breeze. That something 
might be a deer, but I knew it was a man, and that 
man was not a Korean. His clothes were not the 
clothes of a native, they were foreign in cut and 
material—this much I realised in the brief glimpse 
I had through the dense thicket. He was not the 
owner of that straw shoe, and he was not my man 
Friday. My paradise was invaded this time by a 

[ 129 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


man from my own world—a man who wore the 
clothes of an American, or an Americanised Jap¬ 
anese. His presence was a horrible menace, and 
absolute terror, like a thing alive, pressed down 
upon me, and sucked the breath from my nostrils. 
I looked at my hands—so near together, but they 
were paralysed. I had not the power to clasp 
them. It was horrible, and I wanted to shriek a 
passionate protest that my Eden should have 
become a desolation in one instant. Suddenly a 
branch above my head swayed to a feather-weight, 
and the clear note of a warbler thrilled again and 
again. 

Slowly, surely, the cold fear that sat upon me 
lifted to the magic vibrations, and my hands came 
together, the power of thought and action returned, 
and I sprang to my feet. I drew my arms about 
the trunk of a tree, and pressing my cheek against 
the rough bark, tried to think. I felt like a 
trapped animal, danger now lurked in every dell 
and beside every path. Kim was of some pro¬ 
tection, and the gun of more, but the joy and 
freedom of living were gone once more. I sat 
down by the tree, and sobbed out my anger and 
protest. I even choked out a pitiful prayer, but 
no help came. Oh, I knew then that I was in 
revolt against duty, against God, against Miriam, 
and missions, and men! 

L 130 JJ 




FROM JANE S DIARY 


The Next Day. 

Escape from this island is the only thing I think 
about now. This morning I ran down to the beach 
to search the horizon for a chance sail. Robinson 
Crusoe once erected a staff, flying a torn shirt, as 
a signal of distress. I tied my red sweater to a 
bamboo pole, and anchored it among the rocks. It 
was my signal of defeat, and I hated it. Suddenly 
I looked up from my task, and was startled to see 
an object which was surely making its way toward 
my island. Soon the outlines of a sampan cut 
through the morning mist. Almost I could have 
believed that it was the very one that I had driven 
upon the rocks the day I came to my island; but it 
was a larger boat, and was being piloted through 
the surf of sailors skilled in the handling of such 
craft. A vapour seemed to blur my sight, for 
surely the crew of that boat was a phantom crew. 
The sight held me in awe, for the rounded arms 
and shapely forms of women were plainly sil¬ 
houetted against the dark bulk of the ship. They 
were young Korean women with long braids of 
black hair wound around their heads,—their only 
garment, a loin cloth drawn about their lithe bodies. 
Two stood at the oar and sang in rhythm an Ori¬ 
ental sea chant; the others were laughing, and 
pointing eagerly toward my shore. 

I wanted to scream with excitement, for I knew 

[131 Jj 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


them to be the cannibals that Robinson Crusoe saw 
coming up out of the sea to hold a feast upon his 
desert isle. The illusion was complete, and my 
imagination was afire. One woman in the bow of 
the boat arose and threw herself into the sea,—her 
black hair floated upon the waves, as she swam 
with strong and certain strokes away from her 
companions. They made no effort to pursue her, 
but shrieking with laughter turned the sampan 
back to sea. 

Their victim had escaped, (this I was sure of, 
for had it not been so recorded in Robinson 
Crusoe’s experiences), and was swimming toward 
me for protection. I ran to the water’s edge to 
throw my arms about her, as a towering wave 
tossed her at my feet. She was a beautiful Korean 
girl, with the clear olive skin and the brilliant, nar¬ 
rowed eyes of her race. The feel of the firm, cool 
flesh beneath my hand thrilled me like the touch of 
a baby, and I clutched her with eager strength. 
She was alive, and she was a woman. 

“ Who are you, and why have you come to this 
place ? ” I said in Korean. 

She drew back, startled, I suppose, to hear her 
native speech, then broke into a clear laugh that 
displayed her white teeth. “You speak Korean 
words, Pueen, I am thankful. You are lonesome 
here. I have come to live with you.” 

[ 132 ] 



FROM JANE'S DIARY 


“ But who are you? ” 

“ A diver/’ 

" Were you born at the bottom of the sea? ” 

“ Those are almost true words, Pueen. One day, 
my mother in sharp pain came up from the rocks 
where she had gone down to cut the sea-weed that 
grows there. She swam to shore, and I was born 
after a few hours.” She was sitting at my feet 
now, and looking up at me with a winning smile. 
One of her hands reached for mine. It was a 
small, brown hand, with dimples for knuckles, and 
its touch upon mine made me tremble. 

“ How did you know that I came to this 
island? ” 

“A man of my village told me that when the 
moon was young, a Western woman had sailed a 
sampan among these islands, and that she had 
never come back to Chaiju.” Her words brought 
sharp thoughts of the anxiety and fear that my 
disappearance must have caused Miriam. 

“ Did you—did you see the other Western 
women who came to Chaiju to teach the Korean 
women ? ” 

“ No. It was like a market day wherever they 
went. Women were around them like bees around 
a queen, and they pushed me away. Oh, I want to 
know about the new faith you have come to teach. 
I want to know it with all my heart, and I have 

[ 133 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


come to you. For months I have eaten only barley 
to save money to come from my village over on the 
big island to Chaiju to hear you Western women 
teach your great Book.” 

The indescribable relief that had swept me at the 
first sight of her was gone, at those words. 

“ I am not here to teach the Bible,” I said petu¬ 
lantly. “ Tell me why you were not afraid to come 
to this haunted island? You are a magnificent 
swimmer.” 

She threw herself at my feet. 

“ Moons ago a woman in my village told me 
about the Jesus faith. Something inside of me had 
been waiting since I was born for those words. 
She gave me this little book; it has burning words 
that eat like fire into my mind. I need a teacher. 
Pages and pages I do not understand, and perhaps 
I shall miss the way to Heaven. I came to this 
island days ago, but I could not find you. My 
mind is dark, oh, give me light! ” 

She took from the cloth at her waist a New 
Testament wrapped in oilskin paper, and raised a 
face so imploring that I turned away to avoid its 
appeal. I felt in that moment that the very waves 
and winds were in league with a “Something” 
that was trying to urge me into the eddy and surge 
of missionary endeavour. I longed to shriek de¬ 
fiance and a challenge at that invisible Something, 

[ 134 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


—to deny its hateful claims and authority,—to 
escape from its control. But a power, a conviction, 
a faith dogmatic and certain held against the storm 
and passion of my protest and turbulence, and like 
a weathervane I felt myself pointed about until I 
was listening with almost a response in my heart to 
the pleadings in the depths of those bead-black eyes. 
I am wondering if the prayers of a mother far 
away may not be the unseen force that compels me 
in these moments! 

The Korean girl clung to my dress, and followed 
me along the path to the hut. 

“ Won’t you teach me, Pueenf I want to know 
what the Book says for me and my people.” 

“The other women who came with you have 
drifted out to sea,” I evaded. 

“ They are afraid to come too near—afraid of 
the evil Spirit. After one moon they may come 
back. I am a diver, too, like them, but I have 
come to live with you.” 

“If you stay with me how can you live for all 
time in that diving dress ? ” I asked. “ There is a 
Spirit here upon the island with us. We are not 
alone.” 

“Yes, I know. He is not the Korean Spirit 
with the poisoned arrows who has lived her for 
ages gone. He is big and strong, and wears the 
clothes of the men of your country.” 

[ 135 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


“ How do you know? ” I asked, startled. 

“ It was the terror of him that drove me back to 
sea when I came in search of you before.” 

“ When you lost your shoe? ” 

“ Yes, if I see him again, when the sun is shin¬ 
ing, I shall dive into the sea, and swim to those far 
rocks, and at night I’ll come back and live with 
you, in the hut.” 

For the moment the terror of my island was 
lifted as I looked into her clear, steady eyes. 

“ You will teach me the Bible, Pueen” she said. 
“ I know it is the only truth about the soul I shall 
ever find. I can think of nothing else. I want 
nothing else.” 

Her wistful face, raised to mine with fanatical 
ardour, sent a delicious, tingling sense of power 
through me, and that “Something” said to me, 
“ You have been taught that Book from child¬ 
hood. Prove its authority, now, upon another 
mind. It may ease your own heart to watch 
the light dawn in her face when she knows that 
a God who lives, loves, and feels, cares for 
her personally, and so deeply that He sacrificed 
His only son for her sins. Watch her writhe, 
too, under its pitiless demands for surrender and 
renunciation.” 

Like magic the charm and wonder of the stories 
pf Moses, of Joshua, of Joseph and of David came 

[ 136 ] 





FROM JANE S DIARY 


back to me, and with them came an impulse (allur¬ 
ing in its promise of novelty and excitement) to 
tell those tales to this woman of Chaiju,—this 
diver. As I looked at her, I knew that I wanted 
to see her eyes widen under the spell of their won¬ 
der. I was a little girl again, and I wanted her to 
listen, as I had listened, to my wise mother, 
years ago. 

A world of enchantment opened up to me at that 
moment, and goodness and mercy were in the air 
I breathed. 

“III do it” I said. “ I’ll read the Bible with 
you, and we’ll talk about it together.” 

With that decision came an unspeakable delight, 
a sweetness that was next to intolerable. I had a 
strange feeling that by yielding to this impulse I 
had been lashed to a stake beyond the line of the 
tide, and that deep waters would creep and creep 
about my waist, to my throat, and over my head,— 
but I did not mind this, for those waters were God, 
I knew it then. A wonderful, wonderful thing had 
happened. I wanted to be overwhelmed by Him. 
I surrendered at that instant to a peace that was 
deep and real, and to the profoundest joy I had 
ever known. I could not understand it then, I do 
not understand it now. But is this the feeling that 
sends missionaries to the ends of the earth? I 
wonder! 


1137 ], 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


May, ip —. 

The world has surely been made anew for me. 
Every leaf, and every vine, every pink tendril bows 
and sways before a power that sweeps it and me 
in a paean of praise to God, for I’m “ in tune with 
the Infinite.” 

My native girl Friday is like a child in her de¬ 
light with the domesticity of my desert-island hut, 
and she has already threshed the grain in Robin¬ 
son’s bowl. I have named her Keum Yo III, be¬ 
cause this is the word for Friday in the Korean 
language. Today, we cut quantities of long, soft 
grass that waves upon the hillside, and braided it 
into a kind of pliant cloth. From it we have fash¬ 
ioned a simple, Korean jacket, and with a short 
skirt of mine it makes a very becoming dress. And 
my diver now looks a little less like a mermaid. 
But really I liked her in the diving dress quite 
as well. 

As we worked, she told me of her life. 

“ Did your mother teach you to dive when you 
were a baby ? ” I inquired. 

“ She tied me on her back sometimes when she 
went only a little way into the water, but when I 
was seven years of age she took me down into the 
ocean with her. From that time I have known the 
life below the top of the waves, and I love it.” 

“ Were you never afraid? ” 

I 138] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


“ Only of sharks, but they did not come often. 
It is cold in winter, but you do not feel the cold 
beneath the water.” 

“ Tell me what it is like down there,” I said with 
a little shiver. 

“ It is a world even your dreams have never told 
you about. I was angry always with my body that 
I could not live down there among the things I 
loved. I did not want to come to the top to 
breathe. The seaweed below the waves is a forest 
of fern; blue and purple and silver fish are the 
birds, and white shining shells are the stars, upside 
down, but, oh, so bright.” 

“ And you go down there just for the pleasure, 
the joy of seeing that other world? ” 

“ Oh, Pueen, don’t you know that we earn our 
rice in that way? We women would starve if we 
had to wait until Chaiju men earn the bread for 
our families. We trade the seaweed and shells for 
the grain we need.” The look in her determined, 
quiet face told me much about the hardships of 
her life. 


May, ip —. 

These are days of mystery and happiness un¬ 
bounded. We are reading the book of Matthew, 
as we have only the New Testament. Translated 
into the words of this language the story of Jesus 

[ 139 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Christ is of such loveliness that at times it almost 
bewilders me, and I screen my eyes as a blind man 
miraculously given his sight might do, for the 
sheer glory of it. My native knows how to read 
the simple script of her own tongue, and we are 
wandering among the inspired teachings of the 
Bible unguided, unbiased, and with all the delight 
of children in a wood. I think I know now what 
the sensations of a gold miner are, and the thrall 
of his pursuit. Of course I haven’t enough lan¬ 
guage to teach her as she should be taught, but we 
read the words together, and that is quite enough. 
When we read, today, the story of the Annunci¬ 
ation her gaze grew wide with wonder and awe, 
and in real excitement I watched a blaze of 
comprehension leap from her dark eyes, as the 
miracle of the Virgin Birth sank into her con¬ 
sciousness. It sank into mine, too, and I know 
absolutely that the Child bom of Mary was the 
Son of God. 

The certainty of this belief has opened a world 
of such magic and elation to me that I feel that 
I am living among lovely, white clouds. Nothing 
that ever comes to me can ever be ordinary or 
hum-drum again. Bike a butterfly, I’m gather¬ 
ing to myself the sweetness and beauty just at 
hand. 

The Hermitage where Keum and I go to read 

[140] 




FROM JANE'S DIARY 


together, is a diamond palace these mornings. The 
plumes on the long grasses are laced with silvery, 
spider chains, and studded with pearls of dew. 
Azalea and hydrangea gleam with jade and coral, 
and tiny opening buds are shot with sapphire, opal 
and gold. 

I am trying to tell you,—you who will read this 
diary—that something has happened to me, that 
the Book I am teaching my native is unfolding a 
wonder-world to me, and is bringing the Kingdom 
of God into my experience. That mysterious 
Something now has my hand, and is leading me 
out into a creation of such poignant fairness as to 
make me ache with its beauty, but a heart’s ease 
and peace, that can only be of heaven, are mine. 
Friday and I have read several books of the New 
Testament, and the dawn of a look of wide wonder 
and spiritual insight, that is changing Keum’s face, 
makes me sure that I want to go on forever in a 
Bible teaching experience. 

I feel that I, too, am a diver, going down into 
an unfathomable underworld of miracle and reve¬ 
lation. The fear of the mysterious stranger has 
left me, and my island is Arcady. I’m not sure 
that I ever want to leave it, and I never go down 
to the beach now to look for a passing sail. It 
may be that Jane Selfridge is turning into a mis¬ 
sionary. If she is, I’m sorry for Dan. 

[ 141 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


Days Later. 

Something has happened, so marvelous, so mys¬ 
terious, so wonderful that my little adventure has 
been turned into a romance,—a fairy tale. 

Keum and I had talked about the Mysterious 
Man often and often, and upon a certain day we 
told each other that we would go in search of him. 
We told each other, too, that we were not afraid 
of him or of his arrows or of anything we might 
meet when upon this quest. One morning we 
closed behind us the bamboo gate of the enclosure 
around our hut, and followed the familiar path to 
the Hermitage,—then leaving that trail we tried to 
make our way toward the uplands that sloped away 
from the hill-top in the center of the island. At 
that early hour a heavy fog darkened the light 
beneath the pines and oaks, and dripped heavily 
from the gray rocks at the base of the hill. It was 
impossible in the half-light to find our way among 
the boulders and fallen tree-trunks, and the giant 
brakes, so I followed Keum’s lead as she made for 
the line of the shore. 

My Friday is an expert trailer, with the instincts 
of an Indian. We were quite agreed that we would 
make the circuit of the island that day, and that 
we would trail the phantom stranger, should we set 
eyes upon him, to the cave or lodge where he must 
live. If we came upon the ghost in our wanderings 
[142] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


we were not quite sure what we would do, but 
Keum told me, and I told her, that we were abso¬ 
lutely unafraid. 

Several hours of hard climbing among the crags 
and rugged cliffs that marked the boundary of the 
coast, brought us to the top of a bluff, towering 
above the white surf of the sea. Keum threw her¬ 
self down and leaned far over the edge of the cliff. 
Something in the water below caught her eye. I 
followed her, and watched in breathless interest the 
mists break and close, then break again over a 
lovely little cove, sheltered by projecting crags from 
the fury of the waves,—a lake of sapphire, in a 
setting of granite. Floating upon the clear water 
and throwing sketchy shadows into its depths, a 
sampan lugged heavily at anchor, and a man,—a 
white man—was bending low over her rudder. A 
wide-brimmed hat, drawn down, concealed his face, 
—but oh, the set of his collar, the wrinkle of his 
shirt below his broad shoulders, the curve of his 
long arms brought a rush of memories that set my 
heart pounding. He was too tall for Dan, and no 
other man than a missionary could be within four 
hundred miles of this land of my exile. Once upon 
a time, tradition said, a belted earl (or was it 
a duke?) had wandered in this direction from 
Shanghai to hunt tigers among the islands of this 
outlandish world, but I hope I know the cut of 
[143] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


English clothes when I see them. This man was 
an American—that was certain. 

A loose stone slipped from the heights where I 
lay, and fell into the water below. The man looked 
up, and oh, heart of mine! it was Mahlon Mc¬ 
Cloud ! I almost tumbled over the cliff, but Keum 
held me tight. I clutched my throat, for instantly 
the air was rare,—I could not breathe. Trees 
and rocks, all, were tumbling in heaps all up¬ 
side down, in a crazy fashion, and Keum’s anx¬ 
ious face, detached from her shoulders, swung 
in mid-air above me like a full moon dangling 
in the sky. With no spirit left in me I sank 
to the ground. A limp heap, I lay there in 
delicious weakness and content. I was conscious 
of but one fear—that I might lose my senses 
altogether and fall over the cliff like a boulder, to 
crash down upon the man below. The minutes 
seemed hours. 

I could hear the soft lap of the water against the 
bank, and the measured thud of the sampan rising 
and falling with the tide. The odour of wild blue¬ 
bells was in the air, and the words of an old song 
floated through my mind. 

“ I leant out over a ledging cliff and looked 
down into the sea, 

Where weed and kelp and dulse swayed, in 
green translucency; 

[ 144 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


Where the abalone clung to the rock and the 
star fish lay about, 

Purpling the sands that slid away under the 
silver trout.” 

The warmth and essence of a life, loved, longed 
for, and unconsciously expected filled the air about 
me. He was there, in that lovely cove, just below 
the rocks where I lay. Slowly, surely the blood 
came back to my fingers, to my cheeks, and I 
laughed aloud into Keum’s distracted face. 

“ By the grace of God, Pueen,” she said, “ your 
soul’s come back to you again. You will not die 
and leave me! ” 

“ Give me my shoes this instant,” I whispered. 
“ Why did you take them off! You Orientals can’t 
think of anything to do in an emergency but take 
off shoes. Put them on my feet at once.” 

Keum fumbled with the ties in nervous haste, 
and then unsteadily balancing myself against her 
shoulder, I found my way back to a break in the 
bluff, where the rocks shelved away to the sea in 
steep but not impossible terraces. Another glimpse 
of that blue shirt, and a certain necktie, sent me 
scrambling and swinging over the precipice in 
reckless abandon. My hands weakened in their 
clutch upon the last ledge, and in disarray and pink 
confusion I plumped down before that astonished 
My face was scratched and my wrists 

[ 145 ] 


man. 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


ached, but the crowning horror of my disorderly 
advent was the consciousness that one of my 
shoes dangled from a projecting rock, high above 
our heads. 

I stood looking up at it helplessly, but only for 
an instant, for the doctor jumped at me with the 
spring of a tiger. 

“ Jane! ” 

“ Doctor, is it you, and did you come up from 
the bottom of the sea? ” 

“ Did you come down from the moon ? ” he 
roared. 

“ That horrid ledge is steeper than it looks, and 
whoever would think that a shoe could come off 
that easily. And why doesn’t someone get it for 
me ? ” I was trying at that moment to bury my 
stocking foot in the sand. 

He grasped my wrists, and his eyes were blazing 
into mine. 

“ Look at me,” he commanded. “ Jane, I have 
followed you to Land’s End, and you are mine. 
Oh, Jane, how I want you! ” 

His arms were about me, and for one ecstatic 
moment I counted the parallel blue stripes of that 
wonderful shirt, and felt the soft silk of that neck¬ 
tie, like a bandage, over my eyes—then the full, 
warm pressure of his kiss upon my lips made the 
world spin round. 


[ 146 ] 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


“ Say it,” he whispered in my ear. “ Say the 
words I want to hear.” 

His voice was dulcet sweet, and the touch of his 
firm, shaven cheek, a bit rough against mine, sent 
through me an electric thrill of absolute joy. All 
of myself rushed to meet his manhood. I wanted 
to yield to his vehemence, to surrender to his im¬ 
petuous appeal, to tell him that I loved him, too, 
with every atom of my being,—this I wanted to do 
while I was tracing the contour of those fascinating 
lines in his shirt. But instantly, like a taunting 
demon, the memory of his former confession, the 
torture, the bewilderment of my position, which 
had followed his cold declaration of an allegiance 
held above his love for me, flamed up with an in¬ 
tensity that sent me back from him in involuntary 
recoil. 

I threw his arms from me, and in a voice I could 
not control, burst out: “ You told me you could 
not ask me to be your wife, and yet you follow me 
to this lonesome place to tell me once more you love 
me. Mahlon McCloud, your presence here is an 
insult.” 

Like a tall, glowing, bending flower struck by a 
hot blast his head bent lower, and he stepped back 
unsteadily, with one hand thrown out for sup¬ 
port. I dared not look into his eyes, for the 
pallour of his face, the deep anguish in the lines of 

[ 147 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


his forehead, and that pitiful gesture cut me 
straight to the heart. 

I pressed my clenched fingers to my lips in horror 
at the words that had escaped them. I glanced 
about, hoping to find that another had spoken, that 
those hateful words had not come from me. I was 
ready to scream: “ The words I have spoken I did 
not mean to say. I am wild and uncertain. Weeks 
of confinement in this solitary place have unsettled 
my perception of things. Mahlon McCloud, speak 
to me again.” 

But instead, I turned and walked quickly to meet 
Keum, who had swung down from the bluff in 
graceful ease. With eyes that blazed suspicion and 
hostility toward the strange man, she stooped and 
gently fastened the shoe upon my foot. I was 
trembling under the violence of emotions that 
swept me like a tempest. Keum looked into my 
face, and the sympathy and devotion in her eyes 
made me throw my arms about her in sudden im¬ 
pulse. With quick intuition she divined my unhap¬ 
piness, and putting forth the strength of her young 
body she grasped me about the waist, and drew me 
in the direction of the sampan. The doctor started 
toward us, but Keum was too quick for him, and 
before he could understand her purpose she had 
carried me into the boat, and had pushed out from 
the shore into the deep water of the inlet. 

[ 148 ], 




FROM JANE’S DIARY 


I sank to the bottom of the boat, and buried my 
head in my arms, too wretched to care what became 
of me or where we were going. With the skill of 
long practice she unfurled the sail and set the rud¬ 
der, then reached for the anchor rope. I heard the 
flap of the canvas and the creak of the helm as we 
caught a breeze that puffed from landward. “ We 
are sailing away, miles out to sea,” I thought, “ and 
Mahlon McCloud is there alone upon my island. I 
shall never see him again.” 

I listened intently for some sound from the 
shore, a call, a shout—perhaps, oh, perhaps, my 
name; but none came. I raised my head to follow 
the movements of Keum, who was working at the 
anchor rope. The sampan sank with the tide, and 
strained taut the rope with the impatience of a 
racer poised in nervous anticipation of the starting- 
gun. Keum tried with all her strength to draw up 
the anchor, but the boat slumped heavily as another 
snarling wave curled about her, then stretched its 
slinking length along the white floor of the beach. 
The muscles in the brown arms of the Korean girl 
stood out in unshapely strength, and her shoulders 
were squared to the strain like those of a man. 

The boat lurched again, as the wind caught the 
canvas, then once more a tearing flap of the sail 
answered the hoarse creak of the helm in a way 
that made Keum glance at me in unconcealed fear. 

[ 149 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


The anchor was caught among the rocks below; 
and it held firm under the lug and haul of her 
powerful grip. She was baffled and angered. To 
her simple mind the presence of that foreign man 
in that remote place was a menace to me, and she 
felt herself my guardian. Under my raised arm I 
glanced warily toward the shore, and my heart 
gave a suffocating leap as I saw the doctor draw 
off his shoes, and striding into the water waist 
deep, dive below the breakers to swim with sure, 
strong strokes in our direction. 

Keum gave him one look of frantic fear, then 
threw off her braided jacket to stand in her diving 
dress. Her arms were flung above her head, and 
with the grace of a dolphin she cut down through 
the water. Fascinated by this bold plunge of the 
Korean girl, and uncertain as to her intentions I 
leaned far over and peered into the black depths 
where she had gone down. 

Suddenly the boat lurched heavily, and I looked 
up to see a man’s hand thrown into the air, then 
Dr. McCloud’s athletic form vaulted over the gun¬ 
wale. The blue stripes now sketched in broken 
parallels up and down his wet shirt, were coming 
in my direction, and in absolute unreason I knew I 
was going to press my face against them, and feel 
two drenched, soppy arms thrown about me in 
strong possession and tenderness. 

[ 150 ] 




FROM JANE S DIARY 


Without warning there came a violent jerk at the 
anchor cable, a snap,—and then with a bound like 
a thing alive the sampan started seaward under full 
sail. In desperation Keum had cut the anchor 
rope to free the boat, and carry me beyond the 
danger zone. 

For hours we sailed over a turquoise sea, glim¬ 
mering through the vapours of a misty cloud that 
hung over it like a white veil. As we neared the 
island of Chaiju, above the line of the horizon 
appeared a dark cone, apparently suspended in the 
air, and separated from the earth beneath by a 
filmy mist, arising from the sea. 

“ It's Chaiju, Pueen,” Keum called out excitedly. 
“ Halli San is there, I see it, and the market in the 
town below. We’re going home!” She was 
aquiver with anticipation, and in Mahlon Mc¬ 
Cloud’s eyes there was a response to her eager¬ 
ness I could not feel. I could have lived for¬ 
ever and a day with him upon the desert island 
we were sailing away from; but instinctively I 
knew it was the call of his work he was feeling 
at that moment. And in my heart a new thing, 
—born upon the island, made me know, too, that 
I could have a part in that work now—for a 
deep sympathy and love for the things of Jesus 
Christ had come to me with my Bible teaching 
experience. 


[ 151 ] 




JANE IN THE ORIENT 


The sampan gathered way under a rising wind, 
and soon the mountain Halli San was plainly vis¬ 
ible. The girdle of mists had disappeared, and the 
rugged mass of the extinct volcano with its circling 
fields and villages stood forth in panorama. Along 
the coast, black rocks, circled with foam, and cov¬ 
ered with moss, a feathery green, jutted into 
the sea. 

As we neared the shore, through the soft sea 
mists we discerned a group of Korean women 
moving about in a cave, down by the ocean side. 
They were undressing to put on white cotton bath¬ 
ing suits. Their bodies were clean, lithe, and 
active, and as they followed their leader along a 
black reef, far out into the water, their graceful 
outlines were silhouetted against the blue sky like a 
lovely poster. To the right wrist was tied a circu¬ 
lar knife, with which the diver cut the seaweed and 
pried the mussels from the rocks below. Each 
woman carried a huge yellow gourd, attached to a 
netted bag. This floated upon the top of the waves 
as the swimmer turned, and with powerful strokes 
plunged through the water to where the seaweed 
floated in the clear depths below. Forty feet down 
they went, and nothing could have been lovelier 
than those bodies darting through the vivid green 
of the ocean gardens. After a few moments there 
was a flash of brown arms, as the women came to 

[ 152 ] 




FROM JANE'S DIARY 


the surface to breathe, and to throw their shells 
into the bags. 

Keum gave a little cry, and with incredible 
swiftness threw off her outer garments to spring 
over the side of the boat and swim toward the 
divers. Her welcome was sure and hearty. She 
was at home. 

“ Mahlon McCloud,” I said, turning to him, 
u those are the women that Miriam and Anne came 
to teach when we came to this faraway place. I 
despised their work then and refused to help them. 
God changed my whole life by one mighty act, and 
I am a Bible teacher now. This is my work, and 
these women are mine. I gave my life to them 
before you found me, on the island. I accept your 
love as the sweetest thing in my world. I love you, 
too, with every fibre of my being. But had you 
never sailed to my hiding place, had you never 
found me I should still have been a missionary of 
the Cross. I gave my life, and my allegiance to 
death, to Jesus Christ, there in that solitary place. 

“ We shall go back to work for Him, and for 
these, my Koreans and your Koreans, and perhaps, 
oh, Mahlon McCloud, each spring, as the buds open 
we shall make a cruise among these islands of the 
Yellow Sea, to teach a people whose simple faith 
will strengthen ours.” 

Printed in the United States of America 

[ 153 ] 



IN MISSION LANDS 


DONALD FRASER , D.D. 

African Idylls 

Introduction by Jean Mackenzie. Illustrated, $1.50. 

A missionary study which in addition to its informative 
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Professor of Practical Theology, 
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A Record of Recent Travel. Ulus. $1.25. 

Prof. Erdman suggests glimpses afforded him through 
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W. F. JORDAN 

Secretary, Upper Andes Agency of the American Bible 
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Glimpses of Indian America 

Illustrated. $1.75. 
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Bishop of Western New York. 

The Awakening of the Moros 


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Author of “On the Trail of the Immigrant ” Etc. 

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General Secretary, Chinese Missions of 
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A Composite Narrative of Things as They Are. 

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When the East Is in the West 

Pacific Coast Studies. Illus. $1.50. 

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Esperanto—Student’s Complete 
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Harbor Jim 

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National Association of Junior Chautauquas. 

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’Round the Round World 

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